


The Rising Fall

by Kevnis



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Canon Compliant, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Plot, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, Tags will be updated, The Author Regrets Everything, it's basically established information at this point, look i feel like you don't need me to tell u about their weird enemy/friend/lover dynamic okay, please forgive me for the stupid summary
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-04-25 09:43:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14376159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kevnis/pseuds/Kevnis
Summary: The canon ended on a Sunday. This Sunday, in fact. Just before dinner. So Adam has, for the most part, cleared everything up, the straight human characters are all paired off nicely, and the Apocalypse was averted. All, possibly, according to the Ineffable Plan. Except that Crowley is probably still in Hell's bad books and Aziraphale still has a deep-seated fear and aversion towards Heaven that hasn't yet been explored. And someone seems to have misplaced Hastur...





	1. Chapter 1

It was Sunday evening, and the world was beginning to settle back into itself like a snail that, after being startled into its shell, was now daring to extend its head back out and unfold an inquisitive eyestalk. Everywhere, everything, was tainted with an air of confusion and wariness. No one could shake the feeling that they had just been through something terribly jarring, even if they couldn’t remember what it was and hadn’t the slightest idea of why exactly they might be feeling so on-edge lately.

            There were, of course, a very select few who still remembered the past week with perfect clarity, and who always would. One of them was standing in an ancient bookshop that still smelled ever so faintly of smoke, but even more so of healthy wood and new paper. He was plucking a hardcover book off of its shelf and carefully reading the cover. He could see it perfectly, despite the fact that he was indoors, with the waning light just barely slanting in through the windows, and with the added handicap of dark lenses fully covering his eyes. He was being watched.

            Aziraphale sat at his well-worn desk, a calligraphic fountain pen in his hand, poised above a sheet of thick paper. He was waiting.

            “ _Pyewacket,_ by Rosemary Weir. Published 1967, first edition,” said Crowley. The angel jotted it down, and the book was placed on top of a teetering stack that now reached from the floor up to the demon’s waist.

            “Please watch the books, dear boy,” Aziraphale responded offhandedly. Crowley grunted. He _was_ watching the books. Specifically, he was watching exactly five leaning towers of his own creation that would instantly topple if they ever slipped from his mind’s eye. But to him, this was still preferable to starting a new stack from scratch. Besides, they were almost done with the last shelf. He picked up one of the few remaining stragglers and again read aloud the title, author, publication date, and edition (it was first edition; they were all first edition, but the angel made him confirm it anyway). He continued to dictate, and Aziraphale wrote, for the each of the remaining books – which included an instructional volume on training dogs, a collection of Aesop’s fables, and an over-simplified survival guide that would probably get any child who heeded it killed by neglecting to mention the small but vital detail that distinguishes edible wild parsnips from the distinctly inedible water hemlock.

            The final sliver of the sun disappeared below the horizon. Aziraphale turned his desk lamp off, and the overhead light of his bookshop on.

            “I still say it’s a pity you lost your old collection,” Crowley said as he began to dismantle the more precarious of the literary skyscrapers he’d made. “I really liked your misprinted Bibles. Sure none of them survived?”

            Aziraphale shook his head. “None.”

            Crowley was trying to coax more books than he could reasonably hope to carry with physical strength alone into his arms without upsetting any of the volumes below them as Aziraphale began to split up another of the stacks, with more success.

            “No more Buggre Alle This Bible?” Crowley asked, his words muffled by the fact that his mouth and indeed his entire face were concealed behind the assorted books that he held steady partly with his arms and partly by way of a small miracle.

            “No more Buggre Alle This Bible,” Aziraphale confirmed.

            “Shame. That was my favourite.”

            “I didn’t know you liked _any_ of them.”

            “Sure. What’s not to like about reading some poor fool’s mental breakdown in the middle of Ezekiel?” Crowley furrowed his brow. “What do you want to do with these?” He asked, splitting another stack, “I mean, how do you organise them?”

            “I don’t.” Aziraphale admitted. “I never did, but it seems especially pointless now, doesn’t it? I’m only going to sell them anyway.” He finished his careful deconstruction of a second tower and began placing the books back on the shelves.

            “Hm.” Crowley grunted, following suit. “You know…”

            “What?” Aziraphale could hear the grin in his companion’s voice, and that could sometimes be a very dangerous sound. This time, luckily, it was not.

            “How many centuries have you had this place? And this will be the first time you’ll ever have sold a book on purpose. Only took you, what, five hundred years?”

            The angel had to smile.

            They continued to re-shelve the newly-catalogued volumes together in relative silence for a good while longer, until Aziraphale noticed the time and realised that he had been allowing his guest to work for a few hours straight now without offering him another refreshment, which was, of course, unacceptable. He cleared his throat.

            “Tea?” He asked, casting a glance at Crowley. The demon turned to face him and gently inclined his head.

            “Yes,” He said, then “Please.” As an afterthought.

            They retired to the back room. Aziraphale flitted about, filling the electric kettle (by far his favourite modern invention and the most recent one in his possession), getting the cups and the saucers and the tea, and setting everything out in what he considered to be the proper manner. Crowley sat and watched.

            It is no secret that colours carry sensations with them. They have connotations, they have meanings, they have emotional weight. Sometimes these associations are personal. Sometimes they are intricately tied to the nature of the world itself, and they are palpable. They can be felt, in the way that sunlight feels golden and rain feels blue-grey.

            Aziraphale could feel the colour yellow. It burned into the back of his skull, it danced over his body as he moved. He could not see its source, but there was no need to. He knew the exact shade of it just by sensing its touch. It was a vivid yellow, powerful and piercing and very, very old. And Aziraphale felt perfectly at ease with it.

            Behind Crowley’s ever-present sunglasses, his inhuman eyes followed Aziraphale. They were powerful, and piercing, and very, very old.

            Aziraphale poured the tea for both of them, and sat. He hadn’t set out any cream or sugar – neither he nor Crowley took their tea with either. The angel blew gently on the steaming surface of his drink; the demon did not, and they drank.

            “I owe you a lunch now, don’t I?” Aziraphale said. Crowley waved his hand dismissively.

            “Yeah, remind me to cash in on that in a few decades or so.”

            “It doesn’t have to be quite so long, you know.”

            “I know, I know,” Crowley smirked, “Just let me know when you’ve found a place as nice as the one in Paris.”

            A brief smile darted across Aziraphale’s face. “Very well.” He said. “But have some faith, dear boy. It won’t take me that many years to find something.”

            “We’ll see.” Crowley chided. They both drank, and then he spoke again.

            “I still can’t believe I wasn’t here to see you curse.”

            Aziraphale blushed, which only made Crowley’s devilish grin widen.

            “Go on, tell me what you said.” The demon hissed.

            “Absolutely not. I don’t intend to repeat it ever again.”

            “I’ll pay you.”

            “You will do nothing of the sort.”

            “Anything you want.”

            “No.”

            Crowley did so love to tease now and again, but he could tell when Aziraphale had had enough. This was one of those times. He let it go, and complacently finished his tea.

            It was Aziraphale who spoke next.

            “It’s getting late, isn’t it?”

            Crowley stiffened. That was his cue; it always had been, but never before had it given him the sensation that his heart – or at least, the organ inside his chest that very closely _resembled_ a heart – had been suddenly and uncomfortably twisted. Never, until now.

            He cleared his throat and stood with what he hoped was nonchalance.

            “Well, thanks for the tea.” He said, “Let me know if you-”

            “Oh, I didn’t mean it that way,” Aziraphale interrupted. He was also trying his best to be nonchalant about it, and although his best fell well short of Crowley’s best, that didn’t matter all too much seeing as Crowley had failed rather miserably as well.

            “You don’t have to leave, if you don’t want to.” He clarified, “I only meant that – well, I’m afraid I might have kept you too long, dear boy. Isn’t there something else you’d rather be doing?”

            Crowley grimaced. “Like what? It’s not like I can go back to check on my flat.”

            Aziraphale almost asked why, but then he remembered. “Oh. Oh yes, that. Well I suppose Adam would have cleared all that up, wouldn’t he?”

            “What if he didn’t?” Crowley countered, “If there’s just one drop of holy water left in there, if it’s evaporated into the air, anything…”

            He held up a closed fist, then extended all his fingers at once in a sudden flash. “Boom. No more A. J. Crowley.”

            “Let me help you.” Aziraphale offered, rising to approach the demon, “I can come with you and make sure it’s alright.”

            “Yeah, that would be nice.” Crowley shifted his weight slightly, and his shoulders found their proper place, and suddenly looked again at least half as confident as he usually was. “Thanks.”

            Aziraphale shook his head. “It’s the least I can do. Shall we get going?”

            “Not now.” Crowley stiffened again.

            “Why not?”

            “Not yet.” His fists clenched involuntarily. In theory, he could have told Aziraphale the reason why. In practice, that was about as likely as taking a picture of the Loch Ness Monster that does not strongly resemble a very blurry goose.

            Luckily, there was no need for Crowley to divulge anything in order to be understood. Aziraphale knew, or at the very least had a vague idea, without words being necessary. He quickly gestured to the chair that Crowley had occupied.

            “Please sit, dear boy. You need another cup of tea.”

            Crowley hesitated, then obliged. Aziraphale poured a second cup for both of them, and they drank. Then they shared a third cup, and a fourth. It was long past midnight. The first day of the rest of their lives was over, and it had left them no less confused, no less anxious, and no less displaced. There were still no answers. But there was tea. And there were half-hearted jokes, and companionship, and while there was no true comfort, there was something that felt very much like its shadow. And, for now, that was enough. It had to be.

            Still, the air around them was charged with something different, in almost the same way as when the scent of an approaching storm hangs heavy above the earth even before the first drop of water ever falls. Both Aziraphale and Crowley could feel it, and whether or not they were fully aware of it, it was affecting them greatly. But neither could put their finger on just what it was. It was at once comforting and terrifying; like finding a warm, dark place to hide in when you most need to escape, but then noticing that the jagged rocks at the cave entrance look an awful lot like teeth, now that you think about it, and that delightfully warm air is circulating in just such a way that it might well be an exhalation.

            In truth, the cause of the unidentifiable sensation was quite simple. It was the absence of the Arrangement. For almost six thousand years, the Arrangement had been the contract between Aziraphale and Crowley. It was what had turned their enmity into something almost amicable. And now that the Apocalypse had been thwarted, and neither Above nor Below had been back in contact since, and Crowley was still quite possibly a fugitive of Hell, the Arrangement had, rather unnoticed, gone right out the window. This carried with it some very uncomfortable implications. Namely, that without some common goal or mutual benefit, they had no reason to be here now.

            Yet here they were.

            And that would mean that something other than the Arrangement existed between the two. It would mean that, under the guise of a simple deal, something much stronger and more insidious could have taken root between them without their noticing. It would mean that, perhaps, they were no longer enemies who were almost like friends; but rather friends who simply remembered being enemies. And that possibility, if either one had thought about it, would be more terrifying than anything that had transpired over the past eleven years.

            Crowley did not go back to his flat later that night either. This was because he did not go anywhere later that night.

            When he woke up in the morning, he noticed two things. First of all, that his shoulder was horribly cramped from sleeping on the hard wood floor of the bookshop. And second of all, that his sunglasses were gone.

            They had been on him when he had asked Aziraphale if he could sleep here, and when he had assured him that the floor would be fine. They had been on him when he lay down, and found the position that was least uncomfortable. He had fallen asleep behind the translucent black lenses. This was not deliberate, it was just that Crowley took them off so rarely that their continued presence often escaped him, and he forgot entirely that they were even there at all. If he had thought about it, he would have taken them off to avoid the possibility of damaging them in his sleep.

            But he hadn’t thought about it.

            And yet they were not there now.

            He got up carefully, thoroughly scanning the floor with each individual movement to make sure they weren’t lying just underfoot, or under-hand, or under-leg, hidden somewhere around or under him where the shifting pressure of his body rising to its feet might crush them. Fortunately or unfortunately, they were not.

            There were no windows in the back room. In the front room, however, grey sunlight only barely filtered by the thin layer of cloud cover in the English sky flooded the shop. Opening the door, Crowley flinched and instinctively shielded his eyes. They adjusted instantly, but his surroundings still resembled little more than white outlines of their former selves. To a demon, a world of unimpeded daylight is like a world of mirrors. Every surface is much too reflective.

A merciful shadow fell over Crowley.

            And there was Aziraphale, a pair of dark sunglasses neatly folded and tucked into the collar of his shirt. Behind him, the shop was neat and the floor clear. He had finished shelving the books himself, it seemed.

            “Good morning,” The angel said, “Sleep well?”

            Crowley gestured to Aziraphale’s chest.

            “Oh! Yes, sorry about that. I thought you might sleep better without them.” The angel extracted the glasses from his shirt and unfolded the arms, careful not to touch the lenses.

            “You took them?” Crowley asked. His tone was less questioning and more amazed. He could hardly believe Aziraphale had managed to do it without waking him up.

            “Yes.”

            Aziraphale lifted the shades so that the exterior side was pointed towards him, and looked for a moment as though he were going to put them back into place on Crowley’s face himself. But the moment passed as he seemed to instantly think better of it, and handed them off instead. Crowley donned them, and the world became softer and more palatable.

            “Your eyes open when you sleep, did you know that?” Aziraphale asked. Crowley shook his head in genuine surprise.

            “They do. It gave me a bit of a fright, to be honest, taking your glasses off and seeing you staring like that all of a sudden. Nearly jumped out of my skin.”

            Aziraphale was gazing intently into Crowley’s repositioned lenses with a thoughtful curiosity. The demon had the distinct impression that he could see past the dense blackness of them, and shifted his own glance despite himself. He wasn’t used to feeling as though anyone could penetrate that barrier, and knowing that Aziraphale had locked eyes with him while he slept somehow made it harder for him to do it intentionally now.

            “Do you think you’re ready to go now?” Aziraphale asked. “Back to your flat.”

            “Oh,” said Crowley, clearing his throat. “Yes. We can head out now, if you like. Breakfast on the way?”

            Aziraphale perked up. “I know a lovely little café.”

            “Perfect.” Crowley said with a grin. He grabbed the keys to the (new?) Bentley – no matter how hard he tried, he still couldn’t find so much as a single detail of Adam’s reconstruction out of place – and Aziraphale grabbed the keys to the shop. This involved rather more time and effort than they had anticipated, since Aziraphale couldn’t remember for the life of him where he had last set his keys down, and Crowley realised only after patting himself down twice that he had flung the car keys across the back room in a half-asleep rage when they had woken him up in the middle of a REM cycle by digging uncomfortably into his hip.

But eventually, they were ready – albeit one more so than the other – and together they left the shop, emerging back out into a world that was finally, truly, unpredictable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you can't tell, and I certainly wouldn't blame you if you can't, I'm trying to mimic the style in which Good Omens was written. As it happens, this is literally more difficult and taxing than writing in Shakespearian English. I accept that I will not be able to approach the incredible work of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, and that my own style will inevitably bleed through a lot. Also, in an online format with no page-turning, it's impossible to replicate the little footnote gag that I loved. So prepare for lots of parentheses instead. It also takes me a long time to write comparatively very little, thanks to my compulsive pursuit of an unreachable ideal. So in short, apologies all around for all this.


	2. Chapter 2

Crowley’s hands grasped the wheel of his stationary car. His knuckles were not white. His grip was not vice-like. There was nothing superficial to suggest that he felt anxious or perturbed. There was nothing to suggest that he felt anything at all.

And yet.

And yet his breathing was shallow and silent. His face was just a shade too pale. His expression was as firm as though it had been set in stone. And although his grip was loose and relaxed, he still couldn’t bring himself to let go of the wheel.

            They had gone to breakfast. It was, indeed, a nice café; small, out-of-the-way, the kind of establishment that tends to blend into the woodwork a bit and only seems to be noticeable to the nearby residents who walk that street every day. You could easily be forgiven for asking for directions to the place while standing right in front of it. Its name was “The Magpie”, but Crowley thought to himself that it really ought to be “Seven Magpies”, because the shop itself was a secret. He did not voice this thought exactly, but did tell Aziraphale that they should consider re-branding. This was a misstep on his part.

            “ _The_ Magpie,” He had said as they perused the menu, “Just one. That’s a bad omen. Scares people off. They should really think about changing it.”

            Aziraphale pursed his lips pensively. “I don’t think so. No one’s superstitious of a name, are they? You could name a place ‘The White Cat’ or ‘Friday the Thirteenth’ if you wanted to, and it would be just fine.”

            “There’s only one way to find out,” Crowley said, “You rename your shop ‘Walking under a Ladder’ and we’ll see what happens.”

            Aziraphale gave him a wry smile. At the counter, he ordered a cup of tea and a croissant. Crowley decided on coffee and some kind of pastry that the menu had described as “heavenly”, but Aziraphale didn’t seem to notice.

            “I suppose it couldn’t hurt to name it ‘Five-’ or ‘Six Magpies.” The angel acquiesced as they sat down at a small wooden table, “If it’s financial success they’re after.”

            Crowley’s eyebrows furrowed. “How would a letter help with that?”

            “I didn’t say anything about a letter.”

            “Five for a letter,” Crowley recited, “It’s ‘five for a letter, six something better, seven for a secret never to be told.’”

            Aziraphale returned his quizzical look. “No it isn’t. It’s five for silver, six for gold.”

            “I’ve never heard that. You must be mistaken.” Crowley said.

            “How have you not heard it that way? It’s the only version I’ve heard, ever since they started counting all the way up to seven.” Aziraphale insisted.

            Crowley took a bite of his pastry. He took a long, pleasant sip of his coffee. When he set the cup down, he leaned in, elbows planted firmly on the table, and tented his fingers. He said: “Listen.”

            And what followed was the greatest argument that Aziraphale and Crowley had had since the early 1800s, when they fell into a heated debate over whether or not the platypus was a real animal. (Crowley insisted that it was; Aziraphale refused to believe it and was similarly unwilling to visit the creature’s natural habitat in order to find out. Officially, this argument ended after 92 years, when the creature’s existence was definitively proven. Unofficially, Aziraphale continued to receive blank envelopes for several weeks afterwards, each without an address or proper postage, and stuffed with nothing but newspaper clippings about platypuses and their official non-hoax status.)

It was possible that naming the café “The Magpie” had brought bad luck after all, because a good deal of both existing and potential customers _were_ scared away that day – not by the name, however, but rather by the two men inside who were frantically gesturing and insisting that it’s _been this way since at least 1880, I swear, there’s no way you haven’t heard this version, it’s clearly the superior one._

It was a wonder that either of them managed to find time eat and drink in-between their senseless rambles about rhyme scheme, symbolism, and cultural divergence.

Luckily, the conversation was derailed as they exited the café (leaving a generous tip for the poor staff who had to bear witness to the whole affair) by the fact that neither Aziraphale nor Crowley could remember what the original iteration of the poem was.

            “It definitely had five lines to begin with.” Crowley said as he unlocked the passenger door and gestured for Aziraphale to get in. The angel obliged.

            “It was four, I thought.”

            Crowley unlocked his own door and slid into the driver’s seat. “It only counted up to four birds, but there were five lines in the poem. I think.” Then he paused. “No, maybe there _were_ four.”

            “It was ‘mirth’ instead of ‘joy’, I’m sure of that.” Aziraphale said. Crowley nodded.

            “Yes, you’re right about that at least. But then what did they rhyme it with?”

            “Birth, maybe.” Aziraphale said, “Was it ‘three for a death, four for a birth’?”

            Crowley shrugged. “That rings a bell.”

            They had gone back and forth, trying to piece it together as Crowley drove. He became less and less engaged the more they began to close in on his flat. With each turn through the winding streets, he drifted further away. By the time they pulled up outside the building, the conversation had fizzled out entirely, and Crowley could just as well have been a statue for all the emotion he displayed.

            The truth was that he needed an argument more than anything. Now, parked and waiting for nothing, trying to keep his cool, he felt as if his mind were tearing itself apart. Being able to channel that into a raw passion about some external, insignificant thing had been a welcome reprieve. Now, there was nothing left to distract him. He stared up at the window that was his. It looked exactly like every other window in the building. But unlike the others, it was charged with uncertain dread. Crowley took a deep breath.

Finally, he removed one hand from the steering wheel. With it, he reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and produced a small, simple keyring with three keys looped onto it. He deftly separated one of them from its siblings, holding it so that the ring and the other two keys hung down from it, and offered it to Aziraphale. The angel took it, careful not to let his fingers touch Crowley’s during the handoff.

“That’s the door key.” Crowley said. His hand returned to the wheel, and he stared dead ahead.

“Which flat are you?” Aziraphale asked. He knew it once, but had quite forgotten.

“Six.” Crowley shifted his posture slightly. “I’ll be watching the window. If everything’s clear, give me a signal.”

Aziraphale nodded. “I could shine a light out, if that works for you.”

Crowley inclined his head in agreement. Aziraphale opened his door and stepped out of the car. He turned to close the door again.

But before he could, Crowley moved. One hand broke free of the wheel and planted itself on the passenger seat to take his weight as he leaned across. His gaze, which had remained forward and unseeing up until now, landed with a sudden focus on Aziraphale as he looked up at him.

“If,” Said Crowley, “If someone’s there, looking for me… if you’re in trouble, flash twice.”

Crowley was not typically one to trip over his words. Over the course of that single, for lack of a better word, _sentence_ , he felt like he had not only tripped, but also stumbled, come very near to falling, and stubbed his toe a couple of times. He winced inwardly.

Aziraphale looked concerned, which would have been bad enough. But worse than that by far was the expression of understanding and sympathy that followed. Crowley despised being pitied. He suddenly felt that it wouldn’t be too bad if someone _had_ staked out his apartment to grab him and drag him back to Hell. After all, could they really do anything to him down there that was worse than this?

He tried to remind himself that yes, they very much could.

“Okay.” Aziraphale nodded. “I will.”

Crowley watched him go. Once he had disappeared inside the building, the demon let his body drop forward in his seat so that his head collided painfully with the rim of the steering wheel. A deep sigh heaved itself out of his chest and hissed past his bared teeth. And for a good long minute, he did not inhale again.

Slowly, he lifted himself back up. He swept his fingers once through his hair. He turned his head upward to look at the window of his flat. His breathing resumed. And he waited.

 

 

 

Aziraphale mounted the stairs up to Flat 6. He still wasn’t willing to put that much trust into modern lifts. He had been quite enamoured with them when they were artful little things with cage doors and all the ropes and pulleys that animated them clearly out on display. Now they were enormous metal boxes with fluorescent lighting and no view outwards, and that was more than a little disquieting.

The door to number six looked like any other, except that it was better maintained. Or, to be perfectly accurate, it was more lightly used. There was no chipped paint, no scratching or discolouration, not even the hint of a tarnish on the number or the doorknob. It was perfectly clean, and perfectly lifeless.

Aziraphale slid the key into the lock. As he did, something tightened in his chest. Probably, no one was inside. Probably, Crowley was – justifiably, but incorrectly – anxious about the place because of what had happened the last time he was here. Probably, Aziraphale had nothing to worry about.

But _possibly_ , he did. Possibly, there really was a demon of Hell behind that door, waiting to spring a horrible trap. And Aziraphale had no idea how to deal with a demon of Hell that didn’t make casual conversation with him and ask him out for drinks now and again.

Aziraphale turned the key and heard the deadbolt slide back. He gripped the doorknob.

He hesitated.

Then he turned the knob, and gently pushed the door open.

The flat was empty.

Aziraphale released a breath that had been pent up in his chest. He entered the flat and closed the door behind him.

Once inside, Aziraphale took a moment to cast his eyes around the interior. It was, on the whole, hardly what one would call “memorable”. That may have been a large contributor as to why Aziraphale didn’t remember it. He had only been to Crowley’s London flat once or twice, but everything in it was so sterile and hollow that Aziraphale could probably have seen it dozens of times and still draw a blank as to what it looked like. The only thing he did remember was the collection of house plants, and he gave them a polite greeting as he began to circle the flat and give it the initial once-over. (The plants, for their part, were so taken aback by the fact that someone had talked to them in a way that wasn’t a thinly-veiled threat that several of them subsequently neglected to photosynthesise for several minutes out of pure shock.)

Aziraphale made his way to the office first. This, Crowley had told him, was where it had happened. And there should, according to Crowley, be a body. Or rather, the horrifically denatured remnant of what _used_ to be a body.

There was nothing. Aziraphale checked the doorway, then the entire office interior. There didn’t seem to be so much as a drop of water, or of anything else, on the floor of either. Aziraphale found an empty bucket on its side just inside the door, and a bit further into the room lay a pair of long PVC gloves, a flask, and a pair of tongs. Aziraphale righted the bucket, which was empty. He picked up the flask and shook it. There was no indication of liquid sloshing about inside, but Aziraphale unscrewed the lid and ran his finger along the inside of it anyway. It was cold, but dry as bone. The tongs and the gloves were the same. He cleared the items of interest away and put them on Crowley’s desk, then set about examining the room for any sign of damp. He looked for a stain on the carpet. It was spotless. He ran his hand along the fabric of it. It was soft, but not wet. In fact, nothing in the room carried any sign of excess moisture.

Aziraphale stood. He couldn’t _feel_ anything, but he also didn’t know if “holiness” counted as the kind of thing he could sense. The flat didn’t feel _unholy_ either. He frowned. For all intents and purposes, it seemed like the whole mess had been cleaned up nicely. Still, it paid to be thorough.

He left the office, and gave the same inspection to the rest of the flat. In the lounge, the floorboards were checked for stains. The tiles in the kitchen and the bathroom were skimmed over for any sign of a suspicious puddle or droplet. Each room was as dry as a school-issued textbook.

And then there was the bedroom. It was the only room to which the door was closed, and Aziraphale felt more than a little uncomfortable with the idea of opening it. He knew that in this case safety was vastly more important than the issue of a possible invasion of privacy, but he only knew it in a very abstract sense. It still felt wrong.

He tried the handle. The door wasn’t locked, which eased his conscience just a small bit. He opened it.

The curtains in the bedroom were drawn. They were black and dense, the kind that can block out nearly any kind of light. Aziraphale would have to open them first, if he wanted to be able to see anything. He crossed the threshold and made for the window.

In the back of his mind, a spark lit up. It was barely there; nothing more than a dim, red ember. It was the kind of thing that went easily unnoticed.

Aziraphale did not notice it.

The curtains were heavy, and resisted being drawn aside. Aziraphale had to give them a forceful tug in order to retract them fully. But the shaft of grey sunlight that subsequently poured in from the large window illuminated the room perfectly. Aziraphale was relieved to see that, like the rest of the flat, Crowley’s bedroom didn’t display any personal effects. He had perfect white sheets on the bed, a perfect black nightstand with a perfect grey lamp, and perfectly unadorned walls. Reassured that he wouldn’t accidentally stumble across something private, the angel searched the room with the same scrutiny as the others. And, like the others, there was nothing.

Nothing, except for the faintest glint of warmth so small that it escaped even Aziraphale’s attention.

It was time to signal Crowley. Aziraphale went back into the lounge and stood at one of the huge glass panels that made up the floor-to-ceiling lounge window. He looked down and located the Bentley, still waiting outside. He could barely make out the silhouette of someone inside it. A shadow, frozen in place, looking back up at Aziraphale without seeing him.

Aziraphale said: “Let there be light.”

 

 

 

Crowley’s right hand was still gripping the wheel. His left had gravitated back to the gear shift. Aziraphale hadn’t given the signal for danger, which should have been at least a slight reassurance. But Crowley did not feel reassured. His head collapsed against the headrest. The longer he looked at the window of his flat, the more daunting it became.

Just as he was beginning to think for the ninth time that this whole endeavour was a grave mistake, and that he’d be better off buying a new place and arranging a tragic case of arson to clean out the old one, his musings were cut short by a flash of heavenly light. When it was extinguished, Crowley sucked in a breath and waited. There was no second flash. He exhaled, and got out of the car.

Crowley may not have shared his counterpart’s aversion to modern lifts, but he did keep a permanent grasp on the handrail whenever he used one.

When he stepped out at his floor, he found that Aziraphale was waiting for him. The angel’s hands were clasped loosely in front of him, giving him the appearance of a proper gentlemanly doorman. The difference being that doormen don’t dress the way Aziraphale did.

“It’s clear,” He confirmed. “Would you like to go in?”

He handed the keys back to Crowley, who didn’t respond. Aziraphale stepped away from the door.

Crowley did not enter it. He didn’t move. He stared at the door as if it were about to grow teeth and snap at him. Then, for a moment, his eyes flitted over to Aziraphale, and he steeled himself. His hand reached awkwardly for the handle. It was cold to the touch. He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, and turned it. It clicked, and he gave the door a small shove to swing it open.

And there was his flat, sleek and sparse and unassuming. It looked utterly non-lethal. In his periphery, Crowley saw Aziraphale smile at him gently before leading the way inside. The demon followed, albeit with a grimace weighing on the corners of his mouth.

“It’s alright, really.” Aziraphale insisted. The softness of his tone irritated Crowley. He didn’t need to be comforted. He scowled, and forced himself to make for the office on his own.

Crowley’s fist was clenched. He hadn’t realised he’d been doing it. When he reached the doorway and saw that the floor was empty and clean, it finally released. Angry white indents were left in his palm where his fingernails had dug into the skin.

The equipment he had used to set Ligur’s trap was laid out on the desk. Crowley approached it, and ran his finger along the rim of the bucket. When that didn’t result in anything horrifically painful, he touched the bottom of it. Then he picked up the gloves and pliers and placed them both in the bucket, which had a similar lack of any physical consequences. He set them on the floor to be taken care of later.

Now there was just the flask left. Crowley wasn’t sure he was feeling quite that brave.

“You want to take this?” He asked without turning around.

Aziraphale could, if he made the effort, move in almost perfect silence. It was a skill that was rendered utterly useless with Crowley, who always knew exactly where he was anyway. The demon was well aware that he had been followed. He had heard the padded steps and the rustle of fabric as Aziraphale came, and leaned against the doorframe, and watched. He didn’t have to look.

But he turned to face the doorway anyway. And there he was.

“I don’t care what you do with it. I just want it out of here.”

“Sure.” Said Aziraphale. He crossed to the desk and grabbed the flask as Crowley returned to the lounge.

The vivid red message light of the ansaphone was still flashing. Crowley had almost forgotten about it. He felt suddenly ill, and strode across the room to the desk. He ejected the cassette, holding it with only his fingertips. He would have made even less contact with it if that were possible. He looked around the room desperately, until his eyes lighted upon a solution. It wasn’t a permanent solution, but it would have to do for now.

When Aziraphale re-entered the lounge, he found Crowley hanging his Mona Lisa back on the wall. It now covered a safe that contained only a single cassette tape.

A tape that, unbeknownst to anyone but the Duke of Hell himself, did _not_ contain Hastur.

Crowley didn’t move when he was done, even as the angel approached. He slid his hand up the wall next to the painting and leaned into it. He turned his head to look vacantly out at the rest of the room.

There were wheels turning in his head. Aziraphale could see that. What he couldn’t see was the train of thought those wheels were propelling.

“Do you think we could move them?” Crowley eventually asked, not making any attempt to clarify what he was referring to. “You know. Plant them, somewhere else?”

Ah. He meant the house plants.

“We could take them to St. James’ Park.” Aziraphale offered, “They’d do well enough there, with a bit of help.”

Crowley’s brow furrowed, and he turned to look at his companion. “Is it legal to plant things there?” He asked.

“No.” Said Aziraphale, the slightest hint of a grin pulling at one corner of his mouth.

Crowley didn’t even try to hide his. He straightened his posture and turned away from the wall.

“Oh you’re downright _likeable_ sometimes, angel. Really you are.”

Aziraphale blushed, just slightly. Crowley tossed him a set of keys, which he initially caught, then fumbled, then picked up off the floor.

“Go unlock the car for me, would you? I’m going to start carrying them down.” Crowley said, kneeling to leverage the heavy pot of his rubber plant into the crook of his arm. Aziraphale acquiesced and left the flat, closing the door behind him.

As he descended the stairway, he wondered idly why Crowley would want to get rid of his house plants. He hadn’t dared to ask and run the risk of upsetting the demon again, now that he was finally back in higher spirits. Besides, this was far from the most questionable favour Crowley had ever asked of him.

Aziraphale looked down at the flask in his hand. It had been a while since he’d last seen it.

Crowley had succeeded in picking up the rubber plant, and grabbed a much smaller pot with his free hand on his way out. He clucked his tongue at the door, which obediently swung open again to let him through. The lift buttons were similarly cooperative, lighting up at his glance. Crowley was feeling almost like himself again.

Exiting the building, he found the back door of the Bentley already open. Aziraphale was holding it. There was also a large white sheet draped over the backseat and the floor in front of it. Crowley was grateful for that, even more so as he tried to wrestle the luxuriant rubber plant into the car and watched it spill more and more soil out of its pot with each new attempt to adjust it. Eventually, he managed to slot it in diagonally. Aziraphale gave him a bemused look as he climbed back out of the car.

“Would you help me get the others, please?” Crowley asked, his tone sharp. He was _not_ as amused as the angel was.

“Of course.” Aziraphale relented.

They took another trip up to the flat. Crowley mounted the stairs with Aziraphale to keep him company, and they returned with an armload of assorted potted plants each. Crowley let the angel offload his haul into the car first. Aziraphale got a couple pots situated with ease, then tried to slide a snake plant into a more stable position on the backseat. In the meantime, Crowley struggled with futile attempts at blowing a single irritating leaf of a prayer plant out of his face.

Aziraphale backed out of the vehicle, and Crowley took his turn to stash the plants. When he re-emerged, a shadow had fallen over his expression.

“There are only a couple more.” He said, “Would you grab them for me?”

“If you like.” Said Aziraphale, trying to decipher the look on his counterpart’s face.

“Thanks. Don’t forget to lock up.” Crowley handed the flat key over again, exchanging it for the car keys.

“And, angel.” He continued. Aziraphale met the demon’s eyes. Or he tried to. Even if he could see past the lenses of the sunglasses, he knew he would find Crowley’s gaze entirely unreadable.

“There’s something in my nightstand. Top drawer. It’s yours if you want it. Think of it as my little thank-you for your help.”

Aziraphale gave Crowley a quizzical look, but the demon’s face was a mask. It didn’t look like he would be taking any questions just yet. Aziraphale took the hint, and nodded silently.

“I’ll be right back.” He said. Crowley nodded in return, and climbed into the driver’s seat of the Bentley.

Aziraphale fiddled with the keys in his hand as he made the final trip up the stairwell. It wasn’t that he was nervous. He wasn’t even concerned. _Reluctant_ was more like it. Crowley had seemed reserved enough, but even Aziraphale couldn’t always tell when he was truly being serious. The best he could do was hope that there was nothing too terribly mischievous waiting for him. He bit his lip self-consciously.

When Crowley seemed sincere, it was usually because he was. He had never done anything to violate the trust Aziraphale gave him. But there had been… incidents. Only a few. And a mere few incidents in the span of six thousand years was nothing to scoff at.

But Aziraphale’s mind wasn’t on the rest of those six thousand years. It was entirely focused on trying _not_ to remember the incident in Sodom.

In the flat, Aziraphale made a beeline for Crowley’s bedroom. (In this case, the expression works best if the bee in question has just identified a flower that it would very much like to drink from, but needs to hover over for just a moment longer to decide whether or not its potential meal is in fact a Venus fly-trap). He approached the nightstand, which in itself seemed perfectly innocuous. He ran his tapered fingers over the top of it.

And he felt something. Something like a dim, red ember glowing somewhere amidst a pile of damp ashes. It felt almost like…

Aziraphale opened the top drawer.

Inside, looking very much like a patient dog awaiting the return of its master, was a book. It was a very specific book. Aziraphale would have recognised it anywhere.

It was a King James Bible. Published in 1651, by Bilton and Scaggs. It was not as well-preserved as Aziraphale’s copy had been – the leather binding was dry and cracked in places, and the pages were yellowed and brittle – but it was intact.

There was a bookmark. It was a ribbon that looked at least as old as the book itself, and which vaguely resembled a colour that at some point could have been white. Aziraphale thought he knew what page it was keeping before he even looked. He used a smooth, rounded fingernail to separate the pages on either side of the ribbon, and supported the delicate spine of the book as he tenderly opened it.

It was the third chapter of Genesis. Which, in this edition alone, had twenty-seven verses instead of twenty-four.

…It felt almost like something cherished.

Aziraphale smiled despite himself. He smiled as he tucked the book under his arm and closed the drawer of the nightstand. He smiled as he took the last two plants from their home. By the time he locked the door, the smile had faded from his lips. But it stayed in his eyes.

It stayed as he sat next to Crowley in the car. He looked at the stone-faced demon. The look was not returned.

“Thank you.” Aziraphale said.

“Mmhm.” Said Crowley.

“I really mean it. I thought I would never find another one of these.”

“Yeah.” Crowley murmured. Then, softer, “You’re welcome.”

“There’s a bookmark.” Aziraphale offered. Crowley froze. He had forgotten about that. He cleared his throat.

“Yes, um. You left it with me once. Must have forgotten to get it back to you.”

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows inquisitively. He had opened his mouth to ask what Crowley was going on about, but his eyes fell on the ribbon and he quickly closed it again. He remembered now. He had used those to tie his hair back, a few centuries ago. He didn’t remember leaving one with Crowley specifically, but it was undeniable that he’d had a habit of losing them.

“I meant the page you marked.” Said Aziraphale shyly. Crowley perked up at that.

“Oh, yes.” He grinned. “As I said, you’re downright likeable sometimes. Tampering with the word of God would be one of those times.”

He slid his sunglasses just far enough down his nose that Aziraphale could see him give a sly wink.

“I’m proud of you, angel.” He teased.

“You can’t prove I wrote that.” Aziraphale said weakly. Crowley chuckled.

“Oh, can’t I?” He started the car and put it in gear.

“Well, I guess you’ve got me there.” His drawling tone of voice eloquently conveyed that Aziraphale did _not_ have him anywhere. The Bentley pulled out into the street.

“Are you sure you want me to have it?” Aziraphale asked. He was watching Crowley. Crowley was watching the road.

“Yes.”

“Do you want the bookmark?”

“No.” Crowley shrugged, “It’s technically yours anyway.”

Aziraphale didn’t say anything. He ended up leaving the ribbon behind in the car. But this time, it was deliberate.


	3. Chapter 3

Crowley walked beside the glimmering blue-green pond. Aziraphale was just ahead of him on the path. Whether this separation was accidental or deliberate was uncertain. The angel had been very excited about how he knew just the right spot, oh it was simply perfect, out-of-the-way with indirect sunlight and enough shade, not _too_ much shade, mind you. Crowley had listened, mostly.

Their arms were laden with the first load of plants from the Bentley’s backseat cargo. Crowley had taken the heaviest of them, which may have been part of the reason he lagged behind. Or perhaps he was held back by the unrelenting abuse he was receiving from a displeased pond resident.

The swan is one of the most dangerous birds on the planet. They are territorial, aggressive, and have never heard the phrase “pick your battles”. As such, swans are responsible for countless injuries, broken bones, and even a few deaths every year. Ducks share the same temperament as their more regal-looking relatives, and although they have a much lower body count to their name, this is only because ducks are smaller and therefore less likely to shatter a human sternum with a single blow. But this won’t stop them from trying.

A drake with a magnificent emerald head and a taste for Aziraphale’s choice in soft bread crusts was advancing on Crowley. He was accustomed to being fed anytime he saw the well-dressed man in black together with the gentle one in white, and did not take kindly to being ignored by them on this occasion. He had splashed his way out of the pond indignantly and now waddled up the bank, quacking incessantly.

“Mph,” Said Crowley, trying to hoist one of the plant pots up to get a better grip. “No. Go away.”

The duck did not listen. He flapped his wings in an irate display and charged. He may have hit his mark in ramming headfirst into Crowley’s Achilles tendon (which, unlike that of its namesake, _had_ made contact with the river Styx, but was neither made invulnerable nor a fatal weakness because of it) had his wingtips not suddenly dropped to the ground like lead weights.

“Shoo,” Crowley commanded.

But even this unfavourable development could not stop the duck. It only managed to slow him down significantly. He pressed onward, dragging his new handicaps behind him and hissing.

Crowley blinked. He didn’t know ducks could do that. He hissed back for good measure, but avian hissing is a dialect much too far removed from its reptilian counterpart for the two to understand each other.

But Aziraphale understood. From further up the path behind him, Crowley heard the angel call back.

“ _Please_ , my dear.”

Crowley relented. The duck’s wings lifted back off the ground, and he fluffed them spitefully before folding them up against his body again.

It was then that Crowley turned, and saw that he was not the one being addressed. Aziraphale gave the aggressor a patient but commanding look, and the duck resigned. He returned begrudgingly to the pond, where he would have to settle for harassing the American envoy in the trench coat who was now approaching from the other side.

“You too.” Aziraphale said to Crowley, as he waited for the latter to catch up to him.

“What?” Crowley demanded, “It was self-defence.”

“Ah yes,” Aziraphale grinned, “You were faced with such an intimidating foe. I’m sure you had no choice.”

“Exactly. It’s a good thing you were there.”

Crowley smirked horribly.

“You are my shepherd, I shall not want.” He continued. Aziraphale tensed.

“Dear boy-”

“You leadeth me beside the still waters.” Crowley interjected.

“Please-”

“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no waterfowl, for thou art with me.”

“ _Crowley_.” Aziraphale warned. Crowley stopped. The angel cleared his throat.

“It’s just up here, you’ll see,” He said, “Not far now.”

Crowley tailed Aziraphale as he led him off the path and towards a more forested area. As they weaved through the trees, lit by freckled sunlight and surrounded by a cacophony of bird calls, Crowley suddenly remembered the warnings he had received from the old Celts, sometime in the 9th century. They insisted that no one should ever follow beautiful strangers into the woods.

It was hard to imagine anyone stranger than Aziraphale, but Crowley was glad that he was an angel, and not one of the fickle creatures of Celtic legend.

They reached a small clearing. It was a flat strip of grassy land, well-maintained, but dotted with little weeds and wildflowers. Across the way, the trees began again. The clearing served well as a quaint reprieve from the forest surrounding it.

“Here,” Aziraphale said, “We’ll plant them up against the treeline.”

“Sure,” Said Crowley distantly. “We should drop these here for now.”

Aziraphale agreed. They left the first houseplants behind and made two more trips to and from the car (during which time the Bentley’s wheel was, as per usual, clamped). They chatted about nothing in particular, taking great care to avoid any fresh wounds of the days prior. There were some things that each of them had felt obligated to tell the other, but did not wish to speak of again. There were also a fair few things that they had kept secret, and had no desire to share at all.

And perhaps there were one or two things that they wanted to say, but they didn’t want to let it be _known_ that they wanted to talk about it, and in the end it _probably_ didn’t matter anyway, so they kept their mouths shut about those things as well.

Once they had taken all the plants out of the car and set them out in the spots that Aziraphale indicated would be best for each one (which, to the plants, strongly indicated that they were being lined up for execution by firing squad – if they had had eyes, they would have asked for blindfolds at this point) the angel materialised a pair of trowels to dig with. He worked faster than Crowley at carving out the earth, mainly because Crowley could not stand the sensation of dirt under his fingernails and had to stop frequently to scrape it out before he could continue.

Aziraphale just smiled, and coaxed the plants into their new home.

House plants do not do well outside. Especially in England. They like room temperatures, and suffer at anything below that. But curiously enough, that would never be a problem for Crowley’s old pets. They thrived in the park. When autumn came, and then winter, by some strange twist of fate their roots would never be touched by frost. No snow would stick to them. From that day forward, the soil that fed them was perpetually warm to the touch. It might have been an oddity, if anyone ever came across them to notice it. But no one ever did.

Aziraphale snuck a glance at Crowley, who was frowning in concentration as he tried to dig an annoying piece of grit out from under the nail of his left ring finger. He seemed about as receptive as he could be. The angel cleared his throat.

“Why did you want to move these, anyway?”

Crowley grunted. “Probably not going to be home a lot anymore. At least for a while. Can’t be sure if I’ll be able to water them as often as they need.”

It goes without saying that Crowley was, for the most part, an excellent liar. But his failure rate with Aziraphale was higher than in any other scenario, purely by value of how much time they had spent together. They knew each other too well. And this just happened to be another one of those incidences when Aziraphale saw right through him. He knew, and Crowley knew that he knew, and neither of them said anything about it.

The real reason was that Crowley simply couldn’t do it anymore. He was sick of threats. He was sick of hearing them, he was sick of doling them out. He was done with all of it. He wished he could be done with Hell itself. But in the end, there were only two places for creatures like him. And there was no going back to the first one. Forgiveness was a luxury that was only offered to humans.

“We done here?” Crowley asked once the last of the plants had been re-homed. Aziraphale surveyed their work.

“Yes,” He said, “We’re done here.”

Crowley was about to ask the angel to lunch out of force of habit, but stopped himself. He suddenly became aware that if he did that, it would make three meals in a row now that they had shared together. It seemed to him just a tad excessive. He gave Aziraphale a wary glance, and instead said:

“What now?”

Aziraphale sighed, seemingly deflating with the weight of the question.

“I don’t know,” He realised aloud. “I didn’t exactly plan on any of this still being here after Saturday. I’m not sure what I’m _supposed_ to be doing.”

Crowley nodded grimly. “I suppose we’re just meant to wait until we hear from the higher-ups.”

“Maybe they’ve been trying to get in touch already,” Said Aziraphale.

“How do you mean?”

“I mean,” Aziraphale explained, “I mean, what if they _have_ got something to tell us, but they can’t because we’re together. Our side certainly wouldn’t want you to overhear anything meant for me.”

“Hm,” Said Crowley, “You could be right.”

Aziraphale shifted his weight uncomfortably. “So, I guess I’ll go back to the shop, and you’ll go back to your flat…”

“And we’ll wait.” Crowley finished darkly.

“Yes. That would be the responsible thing.”

Crowley grimaced. “Fine. We’ll do the responsible thing.”

Aziraphale watched him. Neither moved. Then, Crowley heaved a deep breath and, in a way that suggested it was costing him a great deal of effort, he set one foot in front of the other and began the march back to the car. Aziraphale looked on helplessly, and followed.

Crowley did not want to hear from Below. If they contacted him – _when_ they contacted him, he knew that his chances of receiving good news (or what passed for good news in Hell) were slim to none. Whatever else had happened, and whatever the Ineffable Plan might have been, it didn’t affect the Diabolical Plan. And Crowley had still royally screwed the Diabolical Plan. He had lost the Antichrist. He had refused to serve in Hell’s army. He had killed one of his own in cold blood. He was dead certain that there would be no mercy for him. They wouldn’t be forgetting any of that anytime soon, and if Crowley wasn’t punished for it immediately, they’d probably dangle it above his head like a sword hanging from a fraying thread, forever. One way or another, he would have to pay for his misdeeds: either in blood or in extorted, guilt-ridden service. Crowley wasn’t sure which was worse.

Aziraphale watched the demon’s heavy steps. As he did, something tugged at his heartstrings. It wouldn’t hurt to try.

“My dear,” He said, “I know you must be-”

“I’m _fine_ , angel.” Crowley interjected with a tone that was about as far from “fine” as London is from the Andromeda galaxy.

Aziraphale was wrong. It _did_ hurt to try.

They walked in silence. Above them, the thick silver clouds were congealing and taking on more of a dull grey hue. Crowley’s temper was already far ahead of them, grim and dark and sombre. The weather would have to step up its game with a torrent of rain and maybe a dim roll of thunder in the distance if it wanted to provide a fitting backdrop. However, the weather was not feeling particularly cooperative that day, and it declined to do so.

Crowley made the wheel clamp vanish with an apathetic snap of his fingers. He opened the door for Aziraphale, and took his own seat behind the wheel. Every action was devoid of feeling. The lack of it was tangible, like a phantom limb.

Aziraphale tried not to move too much, or make too much sound. He knew that the more you feed a black hole, the more it grows.

Outside the bookshop, Aziraphale decided that he had to try one last time. He cleared his throat.

“You can call, if…” He paused, expecting to be interrupted and surprised when he wasn’t.

“If you need to.”

“Sure, sure.” Crowley said.

“Or if you want to.”

Crowley was silent.

“You have my number?”

“Yes, I do.” The demon relented.

“Okay,” said Aziraphale, scrambling to grab the book and the flask as he exited the vehicle. “Okay, good.” He opened the door and stepped out.

“So I’ll talk to you later?” He asked.

“Yeah.”

It was something, at least. But it still hurt.

Reluctantly, Aziraphale left. He fumbled for his keys and unlocked the shop door. As soon as he had set foot inside, the Bentley peeled out and drove away. In an instant, it had disappeared down the street and out of sight.

And in Aziraphale’s chest, the hurt grew even stronger.

But he did the responsible thing. He went inside. He sat at his desk. He laid Crowley’s Bible on its surface reverently, and relegated the flask to a corner of the table for now. Its metallic surface caught the light and gleamed. Its gaze was penetrating. Aziraphale frowned. Then he grabbed the flask and shoved it into a drawer, where it couldn’t give him that look anymore.

There was a lump in his throat. Something hot would soothe it. Aziraphale put the kettle on to make himself a cup of tea. As he waited for it to boil, he retrieved his box of rubber gloves and pulled out a pair. Standing above his new, ancient Bible and looking down on its faded cover pityingly, he donned them. If he had to be here anyway, there was no sense in just waiting about. Especially not when there was a book in dire need of help. There was work to be done, and no matter what else might be going on around him, Aziraphale would bloody well do it.

He stroked the cover of the Bible gently with a single finger. It left a slight powdery residue on the fingertip of the glove. As he suspected, it would require a two-pronged attack to get the leather binding looking its best again. He fetched his tools. A small plastic tub with a clear, gel-like substance inside, a transparent plastic bottle filled with brownish liquid, and a set of brushes were carefully selected and spread out on the table.

The process started with the gel. Aziraphale picked a wide, flat brush for the task. The soft sheep-hair bristles of it grabbed the viscous consolidant eagerly, and spread it over the book’s parched cover with each slow, steady stroke. It was a miracle cure, simultaneously hydrating the leather and drying instantly. A smile briefly graced Aziraphale’s worried lips as he watched it work.

The water had boiled, and the electric kettle shut itself off with a loud click. Aziraphale didn’t notice, and had in fact entirely forgotten that he put the water on in the first place.

Next came the leather conditioner. Aziraphale chose another brush, and used it to paint the much-improved binding with the liquid from the clear bottle. He was careful not to soak the bristles entirely, and to cover every surface evenly. His hand trembled slightly against his will, and he used the other one to hold it steady.

When he was done, the Bible did not look like new again. But it had been restored to the best condition possible for its age and state of slight neglect. It was still damaged, but at least it was healthy again. The colour was lustrous and shiny, without being oily. Aziraphale ran a tender hand over the front, then the back, then the spine, checking for the dry, dusty residue from before or any remnant of the treatments that hadn’t soaked completely into the leather. It was clean.

Naturally, Aziraphale preferred when books were so well- preserved that they didn’t _need_ restoration. But he couldn’t deny the joy that he found in the process. It was like watching something he loved be reborn. And to be part of that process was a true privilege.

Aziraphale tossed the rubber gloves away. He washed his brushes, careful not to pull any of the delicate bristles from them as he massaged them under the running water and dried them with a soft, clean washcloth. He sorted everything back where it belonged.

Once the angel wasn’t bustling about anymore, the shop was silent as a grave. He tried to read, but found the contents of his new collection to be disinteresting at best and alienating at worst. He paced, but doing rounds between the shelves and in and out of the back room only reminded him of how empty the place was. He put the kettle on again, and again forgot about it almost immediately afterwards.

Above all, he tried not to look at the phone.

 

 

 

Crowley was a stray piece of flotsam in the empty ocean of his flat. He drifted from one room to the other, going nowhere, settling sometimes on the bed or the couch. And all throughout, he was victim to the waves of unwelcome emotion that pulsed through his body. He felt anxious, and insecure, and determined, and indifferent, all at once.

But most of all, he felt profoundly, abhorrently alone.

They had agreed to do the responsible thing. Which, in Crowley’s case, would probably be to turn on something electronic to facilitate whatever communication he might be expected to receive.

Fine. _Fine._ Crowley’s teeth clamped together like wire cutters as he lifted himself off the couch and turned the television back around from where he had last left it facing the wall. He gestured to the screen, and it flickered to life. Disinterested, he flipped from one channel to the next. There was a news report, and a mediocre sitcom, and a Scooby-Doo rerun. Crowley sifted through them all, and none of it mattered. They all sounded like static. Not literally – the audio quality was as flawless as ever. But it assailed his ears in a way that it never had before. He turned the volume down. It didn’t help.

He collapsed back into the couch. At least Scooby’s vocabulary still consisted mainly of “Ruh-roh” and not any spine-chilling infernal messages. Yet. It was a cold comfort.

Crowley got up and circled the flat again, looking noncommittally for something to keep himself busy. Nothing made itself apparent. In his kitchen, he found the small wine rack he kept, which was stocked with more than just wine. He considered it briefly, but had never particularly enjoyed drinking alone. And given the circumstances, it would be a particularly bad idea to do it now. But he had to admit that he was sorely tempted. If nothing else could quiet the storm in his mind, that would do it. He closed the cabinet door, but not the possibility of revisiting it.

He browsed his bookshelf. Everything on it had been read dozens of times. Nothing begged to be re-read. His eyes drifted to the door of his bedroom before he remembered that what they were looking for was no longer there.

Crowley flexed his jaw uncomfortably. It moved in a way that it shouldn’t be able to.

Maybe it had been a mistake to give the book away. He knew how much it meant to Aziraphale, but that was just it. It was too personal. Embarrassing. _Vulnerable_. And then there was the stupid ribbon, which only made things look that much worse. Crowley hated that he had forgotten it inside.

His hair had been long too, a few centuries ago. Unlike Aziraphale, however, Crowley had quickly caught on when that fell out of fashion and had cut it accordingly. These days, men with long hair got _remarks_. People who made _remarks_ to Crowley typically ended up losing either a limb or their sanity. Eventually, he had decided that it was much easier to follow their trends and avoid all that.

Aziraphale had not discovered this tactic. Aziraphale had discovered elastic bands. Whatever comments Crowley still got – and he did still get them, now and again – he knew Aziraphale must get them at least ten times more and ten times worse. He didn’t know how the angel did it without mutilating anyone.

He returned to the couch, lying across it like a Victorian noblewoman who needed someone to go fetch her smelling salts. But Crowley deeply wished that someone would _knock_ him unconscious, rather than revive him from it. The metallic tones of the television still grinded in his ears like nails on a chalkboard. He wanted it to stop. He also wanted it to keep going, because as long as it wasn’t interrupted by an impromptu broadcast from Hell, things were still not as bad as they could be.

Crowley closed his eyes. He tried to sleep. He couldn’t. So instead, he stared at the ceiling. The seconds ticked by.

Then minutes.

Then hours.

The sounds of the television blurred together, droning in one ear and out the other. Crowley wasn’t processing any of it anymore. All that mattered was that it was real, true, electronic audio, and not the voice of someone that was doubtless still extremely angry with him.

He lay there, silently watching the shadows move as the sun sank in the sky. And all the while, he was as tense as a rubber band at full draw. Relaxing wasn’t an option. He was either going to snap and hit something, or break himself in half.

He didn’t know that there was a third option.

A sudden, high-pitched trill nearly scared the demon out of his skin. He forced himself to regain his composure. It was the phone.

Crowley stood up and smoothed out the wrinkles in his suit jacket. Hell wasn’t typically polite enough to give him a call. Typically, they just butted in on whatever he was doing without giving him the choice of whether or not to answer. But it was _possible_ , however unlikely, that they had finally re-learned some manners. Another ring sounded from the office. He walked towards it, shutting off the television with a wave of his hand as he passed by. He closed the office door behind him, and sat at his desk.

He took a deep breath.

And he lifted the phone off of the receiver, interrupting it in the middle of its third ring.

“Hallo?” He said, trying to disguise the fact that his life, each and every one of the many thousands of years of it, was flashing before his eyes.

“Crowley?” Said the voice at the end of the line. Crowley’s body released so much of the pent-up stress in its tightened muscles, so quickly, that he felt as though he might melt into the floor.

It was Aziraphale.

“You didn’t call,” The angel said guiltily, “So I thought I would – er, just check in.”

“Yeah,” Crowley heaved. “Yeah, it’s fine. Any word from your end?”

“No. Yours?”

“Nothing.” Crowley’s lips brushed against the mouthpiece.

“Oh.” Aziraphale couldn’t hold back a sigh of relief as he said the word, and the interference of his breath crackled in Crowley’s ear.

“Do you suppose we should stay a while longer?” Aziraphale continued warily, “Just to be sure?”

“I don’t know,” Said Crowley, forgetting himself just long enough for his tongue to slide out from between his teeth as he spoke, “What do you want to do?”

He could hear hesitation on the other end of the line.

Aziraphale spent so much time pondering and fretting over what he _should_ do that the question of what he _wanted_ to do rarely crossed his mind. Or when it did, he stifled it. He was wholly unprepared to be confronted with the concept of it.

And Crowley knew it.

Sometimes he overplayed his hand, and was caught in the act. After all, no matter how much humanity had affected Aziraphale, he was still an angel. But if Crowley managed to think small and stay subtle, he had found that even an angel could be tempted. It was all about the little victories.

Like forcing him, just for a moment, to think selfishly.

“Well, I don’t see the sense in just waiting about for days on end.” Aziraphale finally said.

“Mh,” Encouraged Crowley.

“Things can’t just go back to normal. Not for me, at least. Not yet. Not for you either.”

Crowley grunted in solemn agreement.

“I think I just need something to do. Anything to take my mind off things, really.”

“Certainly you do,” Crowley grinned, “Idle hands are the Devil’s playthings, after all.”

            He could feel the withering look that Aziraphale gave him through the phone and scrambled to get back on track.

            “I only mean,” Crowley said, “I only mean that you deserve an indulgence.”

            The line went silent again. Crowley feared that he might have come on too strongly with that one. He listened with bated breath.

            When Aziraphale spoke again, he only repeated quietly: “An indulgence.”

            “Yes,” said Crowley, treading carefully, “You saved the world, after all. And it’s not like _they’re_ watching.” He waved his hand dismissively even though Aziraphale couldn’t see it, and went on improvising.

            “They’ve got more important things to attend to, haven’t they? Bigger fish to fry. Seems to me, they’ll be out of commission for a while trying to figure this whole mess out. Mine too. Until then, anything you and I do down here is likely to fly right under the radar.”

            He could hear the angel considering it. Crowley loved this. He loved being the catalyst for the seed of Aziraphale’s free will. All he had to do was give the angel a nudge in the right direction, and he would inevitably be seduced by his own ideas.

            “You really think so?” Aziraphale asked. He was hooked.

            “I do,” Said Crowley.

            “It _would_ be nice to take some time off.”

            “Wouldn’t it?”

            “Only a quick holiday,” Aziraphale convinced himself, “Until everything settles down a bit.”

            “Exactly,” Crowley purred, “Why not make it a proper holiday, too? Get out of London for a bit. That’ll help clear your head.”

            “Cornwall is nice in the summer,” Aziraphale relented.

            “I’ll cover for you while you’re gone,” Crowley offered, “Perform an act of kindness now and then. Who knows, maybe that’s just what _I_ need, too.”

            Aziraphale paused.

            “I thought – Well, I rather thought we’d go together.” He admitted sheepishly.

            Crowley had to suddenly grip the phone tighter to make sure he didn’t drop it.

            “I can’t drive, after all,” Aziraphale justified, “And you did say that your side wouldn’t be watching you either.”

            Crowley didn’t even need a moment to consider it.

            “No,” He said forcefully.

            “No?” Aziraphale said, wounded.

            “No, we are not bloody well going to _Cornwall_. Find someplace better, angel.”

            “Oh,” Aziraphale’s tone brightened despite his efforts to hide it, “In that case-”

            He had to mull it over in his head for a bit. Aziraphale’s memories of any place not in England were woefully outdated. Even _in_ England, he suffered from a perpetual lag behind the current culture.

            “In that case, what do you think of Spain?” He suggested tentatively.

            “No,” Crowley brushed him off, “Too crowded this time of year.”

            “France?” Said Aziraphale, “We could go to Paris.”

            “Paris, no,” Crowley rejected soundly, “There’s nothing new. Nothing you and I haven’t already seen. And the people are intolerable. If we go to France, it’ll have to be the South.”

            “Oh,” Aziraphale said, welcoming the opportunity to shift the responsibility off his own shoulders, “Where would you suggest?”

            Crowley thought for a moment. “I know a lovely little place, close to Perpignan. On the beach. Good restaurants, not too touristy. Interested?”

            “I am,” The angel readily admitted, “So it’s settled then?”

            “It is.” Crowley had curled himself around the phone like a constrictor.

            “Yes. Alright.” Said Aziraphale.

            Crowley said: “Best get packing then, angel.” And he hung up.

            It was only after Aziraphale heard the click of the call ending and tried to replace the phone on the receiver that he looked down at his hand. Somehow, over the course of the conversation, he had managed to nervously wind the phone cord around it. He was so thoroughly tangled up in it that it looked as if his hand were being engulfed by a strangler fig tree. He took a deep breath and began to unwind the cord.

            This was a mistake. It had to be. It was fine to talk to Crowley, fine to make the occasional deal with him, fine to spend time with him. It was even fine that by some strange coincidence, all throughout history, they had always ended up in the same place at the same time one way or another. But this felt different. It was wrong somehow, Aziraphale was sure of it.

            The problem was that he was equally sure that it was right.


	4. Chapter 4

Crowley pulled up outside the shop. He had finally switched out the CDs in his car, and was relieved to once again be able to listen to something other than Best of Queen. He had pre-emptively selected Tchaikovsky, and the sound of the Violin Concerto filled the car as he waited.

            He and Aziraphale had met and called and hashed out all the details. The angel had only barely managed to convince him _not_ to drive the entire way to their destination. (When Crowley announced his intention to do so, Aziraphale had at first claimed that it was impossible, and Crowley had to explain to him what the Channel Tunnel was, and that it had been in operation for two years now). Aziraphale asked how long it would take, and Crowley’s response had been “The way I drive, only ten hours or so”. Aziraphale had taken a strong dislike to both the “ten hours” bit and the “way I drive” bit. So, despite Crowley’s strong resistance to the idea of leaving his Bentley behind, he had eventually surrendered and agreed to take a flight instead.

            Aziraphale had not yet emerged. Crowley checked his watch. They were in no danger of being late, and it was no skin off Crowley’s teeth, but the angel was usually extremely punctual. Crowley tried to peer through the window of the shop, but the glare from the glass was too strong for his eyes to penetrate. He resigned, and got out of the car. He could smell something heavy in the air.

            Crowley rapped his knuckles twice against the door, then opened it. As he entered, his gaze was immediately hooked by a desperate glance from across the room. Oh. Aziraphale had a customer, and seemingly a particularly difficult one at that.

            Nancy Hicks – dark-haired, of average height, and who might have had a few more wrinkles on her face if she ever smiled – was not pleased, to say the least. She was on the hunt for a book that her nephew wanted. She couldn’t remember the title, or what it was about exactly, but she knew it had something to do with vampires and rabbits. Or maybe it was a vampire who could turn into a rabbit. Or a rabbit who was secretly a vampire. Whatever it was, she had been assured that all the shops would carry it, or at the very least be able to order it for her. Armed with this certainty, she was beginning to get more than a little frustrated with the attitude this shopkeeper was giving her. The attitude in question was confusion, and it made her feel very foolish. She didn’t like the way he knitted his eyebrows when she tried to give a plot summary of a book she hadn’t bothered to remember any details about, or the way he wrung his hands together when he tried to insist that he couldn’t help her. She was sure he _must_ be able to help, _somehow_ , if only he would try harder.

            “I’m sorry,” The angel said with as much patience as he could muster, his eyes still firmly locked on Crowley and begging for help.

            “But I don’t have anything of the sort. Really I don’t.”

            “You didn’t even check in the back!” Nancy insisted.

            “I _know_ what’s in the back,” Aziraphale pleaded as he watched Crowley’s slow and deliberate approach, “And I really don’t carry anything like that. Isn’t there somewhere else you could find it?”

            Aziraphale’s tone had changed. Before, he had been trying to shoo the insistent patron out of the shop for his own benefit, but judging by Crowley’s expression, it now seemed that getting her to leave would really be in _her_ best interest as well.

            “Excuse me, ma’am,” Crowley said from behind the woman’s right shoulder, with a voice so slick it could give quicksilver a run for its money. Aziraphale would have hung his head in resignation, had he not been utterly petrified with nerves.

            “Is that your car just across the street?”

            “Yes,” Nancy said blankly, clearly taken aback. Aziraphale saw the motion Crowley’s hand made behind his back.

            “I just thought I’d let you know it’s not a good idea to leave your pet inside. Especially in this heat.”

            Ms. Hicks had just about had it up to here with the rampant incompetence surrounding her.

            “I don’t have a pet.” She said pointedly, as though it were a fantastically witty retort.

            “Well,” said Crowley, his voice edged with mock-apology, “There’s _something_ moving about in your car. May want to check it out, even if it isn’t yours.”

            Nancy’s eyes widened. They darted to the door of the shop and back. Unsure of whether she could believe anything this stranger said (he was probably a head-case at any rate, she reckoned), she backed off and strode to the entrance with uneven steps. She opened the door and leaned out of it, presumably trying to peer into the window of her car.

            Presumably, she saw something.

            “Oh God!” She cried suddenly. Her nephew’s book was instantly demoted to the last thing on Ms. Hicks’ mind as she dashed out of Aziraphale’s shop and across the street, without even bothering to look both ways first.

            Aziraphale cast a worried glance upward, fearing for a moment that his former customer’s blasphemy might have called on some unwanted attention. His mind quickly returned to Earth, however, when he heard a piercing scream from outside. He looked down and –

            And Crowley was suddenly much closer than he had been before, blocking Aziraphale’s view of the window.

            “Please dear boy, what did you do?” Aziraphale begged as he leaned to the side to look over Crowley’s shoulder. In the near distance, Nancy was struggling with something that was too dark, and moved too quickly, to get a good glimpse of.

            “It’s probably just a feral cat,” Crowley said dismissively, repositioning himself again between Aziraphale and the scene outside, “She must have left a window down and it jumped in.”

            “Hm.” Aziraphale grunted. He resigned himself to the fact that Crowley wouldn’t let him see what he’d done, let alone intervene with it.

            “I suspect your definition of a ‘feral cat’ is worlds away from anyone else’s.” He said bitterly.

            “Who’s to say?” Crowley shrugged nonchalantly. Then he said, “You ready to go?”

            “She won’t be hurt, will she?” Aziraphale fretted, ignoring Crowley’s question. The demon rolled his eyes. Aziraphale knew he was doing it, even if he couldn’t see it for himself.

            “No lasting injuries.” Crowley promised. Aziraphale relaxed a little at that.

            “Thank you. I know deep down, you really are-”

            “Yes, yes,” Crowley cut in impatiently before Aziraphale could say anything good about him, “Are you quite ready, angel?”

            “Oh. Yes, I am. Sorry.” Aziraphale excused himself to bustle frantically about the shop, grabbing a small black suitcase and snatching his keys as he went through a thorough mental checklist. Crowley waited and watched.

            “I feel like I’m forgetting something,” Said Aziraphale sheepishly.

            “Passport,” Crowley offered.

            “Oh! Of course, yes. Would you be so kind?”

            “Hand.” Said Crowley. Aziraphale obliged with a slight blush, extending his palm receptively. Crowley placed his own hand on top of it, and when he removed it again there was a perfect, burgundy-bound passport in its stead. Aziraphale flipped through the pages with a casual curiosity.

            “Is this how they look now?” He asked, fascinated by the detail.

            “This is how they look now.” Crowley confirmed. Over the years, he had learned from necessity how to fabricate perfect replicas of whatever forms of identification were required of him in the human world. This wasn’t the first time Aziraphale had needed his help with getting proper documentation, either.

            The angel was examining the photo page.

            “Alexander?” He said. It was hard to gauge his inflection, if there was one.

            “First ‘A’ name I thought of,” Crowley shrugged, “I can change it if you want.”

            “No, no, it’s fine.” Said Aziraphale, still looking at the passport as he grabbed blindly for the handle of his suitcase. He eventually found it, and the tactile sensation seemed to snap him out of his head again.

            “Sorry,” Aziraphale said, closing the passport and holding it gingerly in his free hand, “I suppose you want to get going.”

            Crowley bowed his head made an inviting gesture towards the door with his arm. “Lead the way.”

            Aziraphale did. As the angel locked up, Crowley wordlessly took his luggage from him and loaded it into the car. He opened the passenger side door and, when Aziraphale approached, offered his hand to help him into the seat. Aziraphale declined it as politely as he could. And subconsciously, Crowley’s fingers rubbed coarsely against his rejected palm.

            As the Bentley drove away, Nancy Hicks was still locked in unexpected, desperate combat. Aziraphale gazed after her guiltily for as long as he could. Once they were out of sight, Crowley snapped his fingers and called off the thing that was most definitely not a cat. He hadn’t wanted the angel to see it happen and risk undue praise of his moral character again, but Aziraphale knew anyway. Crowley didn’t meet his gaze.

            They drove. Above their heads, a peal of thunder rolled across the sky.

            Crowley was having misgivings. Unlike Aziraphale, who had started off thinking that this whole thing was a terrible idea and nothing good could come of it, but over the past few days had grown to believe that a vacation was a fine thing to do after all, Crowley’s train of thought had travelled on a parallel track in almost the exact opposite direction. He hadn’t been thrilled with the notion of spending an extended amount of time alone with the angel in a situation that couldn’t be excused as strictly business, but he thought it might be a marvellous opportunity to tempt him into doing something _fun_ for once. Now, he was struggling to gulp down the creeping sensation that a holiday would only prove to be exceedingly uncomfortable.

            Crowley turned off onto the M4. As he merged into traffic, a single fat raindrop fell on the windshield. Then came another. He heard a few more hit the roof of the car and the other windows. Somewhere in the distance off to his left, a bolt of lightning flashed down. Only a second or two past before the ensuing thunder crashed. Out of the corner of his eye, Crowley glanced over at Aziraphale. He was looking up at the dark clouds.

            “Looks like it’s going to be a big one,” Aziraphale said.

            “Hope it doesn’t follow us,” Crowley responded as his eyes returned to the road.

            The rain was really coming down now. Any surface without sufficient cover was being pelted with sheets of it. Crowley turned on the windshield wipers. It looked like it was fixing to flood outside.

            And then he smiled. It was all he could do to hold back a laugh. This _wasn’t_ the first time he and Aziraphale would be alone together. Not even close. They had done it before, for almost a full year.

            Lightning split the sky. Thunder crashed. And Crowley pushed the gas pedal to the floor. A spot of rain was nothing he couldn’t handle.

 

 

 

**-4,344 Years Ago-**

            Aziraphale knew what was about to happen. He had been told. He had been advised to leave Earth entirely. But even given the circumstances, that still wasn’t something he felt inclined to do. He reckoned he would much rather stay, and wait it out here.

            And then he remembered Crowley. Aziraphale wondered if he should tell him. He shouldn’t. Undeniably, he shouldn’t. But at the thought of it, something tugged gently at the angel’s mind. Something other than duty, if such a thing were possible. The thought that it might be terrified him.

            Aziraphale had already exiled himself to the desert. He didn’t want to be around when it happened. He didn’t want to witness the suffering. As he paced back and forth across the sand, tormenting himself over whether or not to return to the kingdom he had just left, a small, dusty-brown lizard flicked its head to and fro to watch him. Aziraphale tried not to notice it. He tried not to imagine how it, too, would soon be gone. Engulfed. Consumed.

He wrung his hands together, and bit at his lower lip. Was it even possible to act outside of his orders? Not only that, but in direct contradiction to them, because he had been specifically instructed to tell no one.

            Well, that was it then. Aziraphale was supposed to tell no one. And although Crowley wasn’t human, he certainly counted as “someone”. So he wouldn’t tell him.

            The next thing Aziraphale did was to track down Crowley and tell him everything.

            “Hm.” Was Crowley’s initial response.

Aziraphale had found him not far from where they had last crossed paths. He was at an inn, having a drink, and Aziraphale had reluctantly allowed him to order a kind of barley wine for him as well. The angel was careful not to indulge too much in it. He took another sip, barely allowing the substance to touch his tongue, as he watched the news sink in (as best he could – in those days, Crowley usually used a low-hanging hood to conceal his eyes. This had the unfortunate side-effect of also hiding his brow, meaning that Aziraphale had to interpret his expressions by looking at his mouth alone.)

            “ _Everything_?” Crowley said eventually.

            Aziraphale confirmed it. “Both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air.”

            Crowley was silent.

            Then he said: “What did they do? The… beasts and the fowls of the air and whatnot.”

            Aziraphale shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s not for me to question.”

            “I must be doing something right up here, if they’ve all got to go,” Crowley said with a proud grin as he surveyed the people around him, “Shame all that work has to go to waste though.”

            “I’m sure it’s not all your doing,” Aziraphale protested gloomily, “And they’re humans, Crowley. The children of God. They aren’t your project to toy with.”

            Crowley hadn’t meant to upset him, but he also couldn’t put his finger on what was wrong with what he had said. He tried to shrug it off with an empty apology, and continued.

            “What do we do?”

            “I don’t know what you’re going to do,” Said Aziraphale, fiddling nervously with his fingers, “But I’m going to stay in the Ararat mountains until the whole thing blows over.”

            Crowley cocked his head, and Aziraphale couldn’t tell if the gesture was curious or cocky.

“Not going back Up There?” He asked, taking another drink of his own beverage. When he raised the glass to his lips, the tips of his tongue touched the rim of it in a way that made Aziraphale intensely uncomfortable. He averted his gaze.

            “No,” He confessed, “I still don’t…”

            “Want to?” Crowley suggested. Aziraphale winced.

            “I don’t… see the use in it,” He decided, “I feel like my purpose is here. Going back _there_ only to go through the whole process of getting an earthly body again would be needlessly complicated. It’s easier to wait.”

            Crowley’s eyebrows lifted suspiciously. He wasn’t convinced in the slightest, and wondered whether or not Aziraphale himself was.

            “Well, I don’t need to explain to you why Hell isn’t exactly the most pleasant place to return to either,” Said Crowley, “So I guess I’ll follow your lead. If you don’t mind.”

            Aziraphale didn’t know if he minded or not. He shifted, looking like an animal that suddenly found itself two feet away from a predator and isn’t sure yet if its best bet is to stay put and hopefully unnoticed, or to run for it now before things got worse.

            He couldn’t exactly deny Crowley the simple act of seeking shelter, could he? Whatever the demon did was his own business. It was neither Aziraphale’s responsibility nor his fault.

            “Sure,” He surrendered.

            “Thanks,” Said Crowley, raising his glass to him before taking another drink from it, “When did you say this is happening again?”

            In the distance, like the growl of a huge creature being stirred awake, thunder rumbled. Aziraphale cast a meaningful glance upward.

            “Oh.” Crowley gulped.

            “Well,” He said then, “You going to finish that?”

            Aziraphale shook his head. Crowley took the last mouthful of his own drink like a shot, then downed his companion’s with the same vigour. Aziraphale looked away as he wiped his lips dry with the back of his hand.

            Crowley rose from the corner table they had been sharing.

            “Shall we?” He asked. Aziraphale stood wordlessly. They left together. Crowley exited the inn without a second thought.

            But Aziraphale hesitated. Frozen for a moment in the doorway, even though he knew it would be bad for him, he looked back. The people in the inn ate and drank and talked. Still more probably occupied the rooms, already asleep. The night air rushed past Aziraphale’s unmoving shape in the doorway. He was letting the cold in.

            With a heavy heart, he stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind him.

            Crowley was waiting for him, patiently. He may not have fully understood sentimentality, but he could at least respect that Aziraphale needed a moment. When the angel approached him, still downcast, the first drops of rain had already begun to fall. But Crowley didn’t keep his hood on to protect himself from them. His fingers curled around the edge of it, and pulled it back until it fell onto his shoulders.

            And there they were, barely visible in the darkness, but unmistakable. Immutable, and inhuman, and to the one who met their gaze unflinchingly, a relief to be able to see at last.

            “Lead the way,” Their owner invited.

            Aziraphale retreated once again from humanity’s fragile realm, and this time, Crowley followed. The rain fell faster and heavier. Still they walked, away from where any mortal soul might see them. Back into the vast, empty desert.

            And when Aziraphale decided they were far enough from civilization, two pairs of enormous, flawlessly white wings took flight.

            Still it rained. It rained for forty days and forty nights, and Crowley and Aziraphale watched from atop the world’s highest peak as the water level rose and rose.

            And once they were locked on the last sliver of ground left in a world of water, they found that there wasn’t all that much left to do anymore. For a few months, they talked and swam and watched the sun and moon and stars move across the sky.

            Eventually, Crowley decided he wanted to go for a dive.

            He told Aziraphale, and said “Don’t wait for me” – which was perplexing to the angel, because there wasn’t exactly much else he could do – and then in a single fluid motion, Crowley disappeared beneath the surface.

            After that, Aziraphale waited alone. The sun sank ever lower in the sky, and Crowley did not reappear. The night came and went, and still he was absent. Aziraphale watched the spot where he had gone under. Occasionally a ripple or a few bubbles would rise to disturb the water’s glasslike surface, but there was no other sign of him. When the sun set on the second day, he stopped watching.

            On the night of the third day, Aziraphale was gazing up at the sky and tracing out all the constellations in his head. He had just made it around to Draco when –

            An almighty splash burst upward right next to him, nearly startling him out of his skin. He rushed to stand on the submerged surface of the mountain’s (formerly) leeward side, slipped and fell, then struggled to his feet again.

            Crowley had a despicable lopsided grin on his face.

            “Did I scare you?” He asked with sickly sweet mock-innocence. Then, without waiting for a response, he said, “There’s no fish.”

            Aziraphale blinked. He did this several times. No other muscle in his body moved. It was taking a while for him to process the sheer absurdity of this interaction. Eventually, something managed to penetrate his mind and get some of the gears turning again.

            “ _What?_ ” He demanded.

            “There’s no fish,” Said Crowley. He swam to the haven of the mountain’s tip with an odd, undulating motion that wasn’t exactly efficient. Old habits die hard. A hand touched solid ground, and he grabbed it, anchored his other limbs to it, and crawled his way over to Aziraphale. The angel reluctantly allowed him to sit next to him, then eased himself down as well.

            “I went all the way down,” Crowley explained, “To where the ocean used to be. I was down there for-” He paused, and frowned, “How long was I down there for?”

            “Three days,” Said Aziraphale, “Just about.”

            Crowley’s eyebrows lifted, impressed.

            “There you are, then. Three days. Not a single fish. They should still be down there, don’t you think? Fish don’t drown.”

            “The Earth must be wiped clean,” Said Aziraphale with a hollow, practiced tone, “No living thing may be left on its surface.”

            “Sure, sure,” Crowley dismissed, “My point is, _how_? If the fish don’t drown like everything else, what’s happened to them?”

            Aziraphale looked distinctly uncomfortable with that.

            “I don’t know,” He said, “It’s not for me to question.”

            Crowley grimaced.

            “And why has _everything_ got to go anyway? Doesn’t seem fair to me. If He’s got it out for humans that’s fine enough, but why take everything else down with them? That’s what I want to know.”

            Aziraphale was fidgeting nervously with his hands.

            “I don’t know,” He recited again, “It’s not for me to-”

            “Right, I know, it’s not for you to question,” Crowley interjected impatiently, “But what if it were? Hypothetically.”

            Aziraphale paused. His hands stopped their feverish motion. He shifted his glance.

            Crowley’s wet hair was slicked back, a few stubborn strands of it still sticking to his face and neck and shoulders. In the moonlight, his stomach rose and fell and his ribs expanded and contracted, drinking in the cool, pure air again after days of nothing but the suffocating depths of the flood. His eyes, pointed upward, reflected a sky full of stars.

            And then in a flash, they were locked on Aziraphale’s. He quickly dodged their stare, looking away again guiltily.

            “Hypothetically,” He whispered.

            “Nothing wrong with a hypothetical,” Crowley encouraged. Aziraphale was looking out at the endless sea, but he could feel Crowley’s eyes still on him. It felt like goosebumps when you weren’t even cold. It felt like being caressed by the finest thread of silk. It felt like a butterfly landing on his skin, except the butterfly was older than the world itself, and it was whispering “hypothetically” into his ear until the word wormed its way into his soul.

            And Aziraphale said, “Hypothetically.”

            But this time he wielded the word like a tool.

            “If I were to question it,” He went on cautiously, “I might – hypothetically – agree with you.”

            The words felt dirty coming from his throat, but they tasted delicious in his mouth. So he continued.

            “I’d wonder why everything has to go, too. I would ask why the whole world has to pay for the sins of humanity. If I were feeling very bold-”

            He stopped himself.

            “Let’s say, hypothetically, you are feeling very bold,” Crowley hissed.

            “ _Hypothetically_ ,” Aziraphale reminded himself, “If I were feeling very bold, I might even ask why all the humans have to go.”

            “Bold indeed,” Said Crowley. Aziraphale could hear his approval. He wasn’t sure if that sat well with him.

            But he didn’t have much time to think about it, because then he broke.

            He broke softly, and silently, but he broke straight to his core.

            Aziraphale’s head collapsed into his hands and he cradled it there. His fingers knotted into his hair and he drew his knees up to his chest and, waist-deep in the water that choked the world, he withered like so many drowning flowers down in the abyss.

            “I’m supposed to love all living things,” He whispered hoarsely, “God made them, each creature great and small, by hand. I’m meant to love them as my brothers and sisters, and I _do_. And now I’m not allowed to weep at their death.”

            He took a deep breath that shuddered as it tapered off.

            “I don’t understand,” Aziraphale confessed.

            Crowley was unnaturally still. He was trying not to do so much as disturb the very air around them. His emotional intelligence was decidedly on the low side to begin with, and now that it was Aziraphale – someone he knew well enough to feel pressured to comfort, but not well enough to know if it would even be appropriate to – it plummeted like a rock from a cliff.

            Awkwardly, gingerly, he extended a hand. His fingertips grazed Aziraphale’s shoulder, and when he didn’t jump at their touch, Crowley kept going until the full weight of his hand rested there. It felt like forcing two repelling magnets to touch. He gritted his teeth.

            “Are you… okay?” He asked uselessly.

            “I have to be,” Aziraphale muttered with unmistakable bitterness, “I don’t have a choice. I’m an angel.”

            Crowley’s hand, which had still retained the cold from his journey into the lifeless depths, was beginning to grow warm again from the heat of Aziraphale’s body. When he spoke, his voice sounded warmer as well.

            “There has to be something left at the end of all this, right? It can’t _all_ be gone.”

            Aziraphale breathed deliberately, and tried to compose himself.

            “There is one man,” He explained, “Noah. He and his family are righteous and pure of heart. God instructed him to build an ark, and to bring two of every animal into it with them.”

            Crowley was quiet for a long moment.

            Then he said, “So all the fish are on the ark too, are they?”

            Aziraphale exhaled in a way that was almost a laugh. At the sound of it, Crowley smiled with relief and removed his hand from his shoulder.

            “Must have been a real challenge getting the whales in,” He said with a grin. Aziraphale was laughing now, a weak laugh, but a true one. He unfolded himself and reclined against the mountain’s slope, half-lying there and half-floating, and met Crowley’s gaze without feeling the urge to look away.

            “I really have no idea where all the fish are, dear boy,” He confessed. Crowley chuckled, and it overcame the sudden tension of his internal wince at the impromptu term of endearment. Aziraphale had never called him anything like that before. They used each other’s names, or their aliases, or else they used nothing. Being a “dear”-anything was new to him, and mortifying.

            Or at least, it would have been. But Crowley was too busy having a good laugh to dwell on it.

            After that, the months dragged onward again. Nothing changed. The endless ocean never rose nor depleted. The weather remained a constant partially-cloudy. And no living thing disturbed the barren water or the empty sky.

            But something changed between Crowley and Aziraphale, if only slightly. They found that their conversations came a bit more naturally. A sliver of formality had melted away, and left amicability in its wake. It made the waiting just a hint more pleasant.

            Unfortunately, it did not make it go by any faster. And without much else to entertain themselves, Aziraphale and Crowley inevitably descended ever further into boredom. And boredom could be a dangerous thing when it infested the wrong mind.

            Crowley eventually exhausted every possibility for entertaining himself. He had swum to the bottom and back countless times. He had watched the march of the celestial bodies across the sky for so long that he could have drawn up a star chart, freehand, better than an astronomer equipped with every tool of measurement that humanity would ever invent. He had talked with Aziraphale until he was damn near certain he knew more about the angel than he did about himself. And still, the flood had not abated.

            Which was when, on an afternoon that looked the same as all the others, his mind started to wander to places he would never have allowed it to discover otherwise.

            Crowley was floating aimlessly, letting the waves carry him. (They didn’t carry him anywhere; there were no more currents during the Flood and no more shores for waves to crest and break upon. Crowley hadn’t moved an inch in several hours.) His eyes were closed against the assault of the sun, and as he watched the uniform red-orange of his inner eyelids, his mind was slowly consuming itself. He was beginning to wonder if perhaps, if he dove down far enough and searched thoroughly enough, he might find a plug to pull that would drain all this nuisance water away, when his eyelids darkened and he tentatively opened one eye by a hair’s breadth.

            A large cloud had passed in front of the sun, mercifully shielding Crowley from the worst of the fiend’s rays for a few precious moments. He took the opportunity to have a look around. He righted himself in the water and paddled in place with three limbs while one hand, cupped over his brow, further protected his eyes from the daylight. This was when he noticed, with slight disappointment, that he was still in the exact same spot he had started out in. He had rather been hoping that he might have drifted so far away that he would have to navigate the way back again, and having to get his bearings in a world with no landmarks would have been the most entertaining three seconds he had had in several days. But there was no such luck.

            The second thing that Crowley noticed was Aziraphale. He had apparently followed Crowley’s example, and was drifting face-up in the water just a few feet away. His eyes were closed, and his body rose and fell ever so slightly in the water in time with his even breaths. Crowley looked at him.

            And then, he _looked at him_.

            In that moment, with an empty mind that craved to be filled with anything, anything at all, something inevitably made its way in. And Crowley first had an inkling.

            He already knew that Aziraphale was attractive. He would have been an idiot not to see it. But he knew it casually. He knew it in the same way that he knew the sky was blue. It was a detail of life, simple and unremarkable. It wasn’t the kind of thing he devoted any time or effort to thinking about.

            But now he had nothing but time, and he was dying for something to put effort into. And all of this culminated in the sudden thought of _Well, if I have to be stranded with someone, at least he’s easy on the eyes._

Crowley had nothing but time, and a new way to kill it had just appeared to him. So as the shadow of the cloud passed on and the sun unleashed its full wrath again, and Crowley closed his eyes and resumed aimlessly floating in place, his mind started to drift too. And for the first time he wondered, idly, what an angel’s lips would taste like.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Only middle schoolers, weebs, and repressed gay angels care about indirect kiss: Round One

Air travel, in the modern sense of the word, was completely foreign to Crowley and Aziraphale. Despite that, the same issue that they shared with lifts did not apply here. On the surface, the contraptions were fundamentally similar: both claustrophobic metal boxes designed for transport that could, at any moment, plummet to the ground without warning. The key difference was that a lift is further enclosed within a narrow concrete shaft. An aeroplane, however, is contained only by the endless skies. And that was an element that they knew. It was a safe place to escape to, if escape were ever necessary.

            So neither one was nervous to fly in the human manner. Uncomfortable, certainly, and perhaps a bit irritated, but not nervous. Crowley was idly watching the view of the world below outside the window next to his seat, and Aziraphale was stiffly leaning away from the aisle to avoid accidental physical contact with someone who was sidling their way down towards the restrooms despite the fact that the “fasten seatbelt” sign was on. He overshot his movements, and his shoulder brushed against Crowley’s. He quickly flinched away again, but it seemed to have attracted his attention.

            “Remind you of home, angel?” Crowley said. He didn’t move, and even his eyes stayed fixed on the window.

Aziraphale joined him in looking outside. Thick white clouds obscured most of the view. Sunlight refracted off of them, causing spots of blinding white edged in a rainbow of different hues. It was beautiful, the way everything on Earth was beautiful, but Aziraphale couldn’t discern what part of it Crowley had wanted him to notice.

“What do you mean?” He asked with a puzzled expression.

“You know,” Crowley prompted, looking at Aziraphale for a moment before tipping his head back toward the window in a subtle gesture and returning his gaze to it again.

“When humans picture Heaven, it’s always _that_ , isn’t it?”

“Oh,” Said Aziraphale, “Yes, I suppose. But that isn’t actually how it looks at all.”

“I know that,” Crowley said, bluntly. Aziraphale thought he sensed some bitterness in his voice.

“It’s not like I’ve forgotten.”

This time it was unmistakable. His tone was more bitter than baker’s chocolate.

“My dear,” Aziraphale extended gingerly. Crowley didn’t accept the offer his voice implied.

“I never forgot,” He said. The words were as prickly as a cactus. Beyond that, they were either vindictive or wistful. They might have been both at the same time. Aziraphale couldn’t tell.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale whispered.

Crowley straightened his posture (as best he could in one of the least ergonomic seats known to humankind – even first class seating was still aeroplane seating). He released a heavy sigh. And then he was himself again. Mostly.

He forced a small, crooked smile and turned to Aziraphale.

“It’s not all that, anyway,” Crowley said, “I know you think so too.”

Aziraphale tried and failed not to squirm. He was intensely uncomfortable with how the whole situation had suddenly backfired on him. He tried to think of anything he could say to defend himself, but he had spoken ill of his place of origin in front of Crowley too many times to take any of it back. He did try, as a general rule, not to speak ill of Heaven at all, but he had spent too much time on Earth to be perfect, and as a result things occasionally slipped out. And now Crowley was armed to his grinning teeth with all those misspoken words.

For better or worse, he didn’t have to speak. It was Crowley who put the next word in.

“Anytime you decide you want a change of scenery, just let me know,” He offered with a voice as slick as oil, “It’s all too easy to get in. No backstage passes necessary.”

“What’s a backstage pass?” Aziraphale asked, as much genuinely confused as he was trying to change the subject. Unfortunately, Crowley just dismissed the question with a shake of his head.

“You could even see some of your old friends again,” He replied instead, “Shakespeare. Beethoven. We have them all, you know.”

Aziraphale clenched one fist, weakly, then released it as though remembering himself.

“Don’t.” The word was soft but heavy, like the thump of an old leather-bound tome being dropped to the floor.

“It’s what I do, angel,” Crowley whispered.

“Not with me,” Aziraphale pleaded.

“Why not?” The demon retorted enticingly, “Afraid you’ll actually be tempted?”

Unable to come up with anything better off the top of his head, Aziraphale settled for: “Not _here_.”

Crowley raised his eyebrows.

“So we’re open to negotiation on this, are we?” He asked eagerly, “I’ll agree to your terms. I’m nothing if not fair. No temptation on the plane.”

“Any enclosed area,” Aziraphale insisted, “Nowhere I can’t leave.”

“Any enclosed space you can’t easily escape from,” Crowley agreed, “Anything else?”

After a moment of thought, Aziraphale quietly decided, “Not when I’m drunk.”

Crowley scoffed.

“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even drink in the first place. You’re _glad_ I introduced you to that. Besides, I do some of my best work when you’re drunk. No deal.”

Aziraphale had to agree, with a guilty blush, that that was fair enough.

“Not in public,” He requested instead.

“Not where other people can hear,” Crowley acquiesced, “Is that all?”

He gave Aziraphale time to think, and he soon agreed that that was all.

“Then it’s settled,” Said Crowley, “Shall we shake on it?”

Their method of sealing a pact was older than most, and was now considered to be largely unhygienic and at least slightly repellent. But it had worked for them for a few thousand years now, and neither were of the mind to change it. Their contracts were never written, always verbal, and they simply trusted each other to keep them. The ceremony of it, if one could even call it that, only existed because they wanted a way to sign off on things together without actually _signing_ anything.

Crowley brought the palm of his right hand up to his open mouth. His eyes closed behind his sunglasses and his brow furrowed, but he showed no other outward signs as he pushed the meat of his hand upward and in. Aziraphale, who always felt the tips of his ears get a little pink anytime he watched Crowley’s method, preferred a more delicate touch. A small, silver pen knife materialised in his left hand. Its blade was sharper than a paper’s edge, and he barely felt a thing as it pierced into the flesh of his right palm, but he winced anyway. The knife vanished. A drop of blood welled up from the laceration it left behind on his hand, and he offered it to Crowley. He took it. They locked their hands together, pressing the bleeding palms against each other, and shook. And that was all.

Crowley’s hand floated up to his mouth again.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Aziraphale murmured to him.

“Well I’d rather wash it off just as much as you would,” Said Crowley, indicating the still-lit Fasten Seatbelt sign, “But I’m not allowed to just yet.”

Aziraphale was self-consciously stroking the pads of his fingertips against his own wound. He could feel the blood, clotted and drying, rubbing off onto his fingers. Both his and Crowley’s. Crowley’s saliva too, he knew.

He quickly snapped his hand back open, holding it rigid to avoid falling back into the habit of touching the palm.

It didn’t appear that Crowley had noticed. He had turned his attention back to the window. He watched the clouds below the aeroplane, and the ocean even further below them. He had seen it all before, but it had been a while. Aziraphale followed his gaze. It had been a while for him, too. He had settled in England centuries ago, and hadn’t done very much world travelling since. He had gathered all the things he loved most into one place – his books, his habits, his-

His eyes drifted to Crowley’s face, then snapped back to the window.

-His way of life. It was all there. He had felt no need to leave it.

Crowley was tense. He had a right to be. There were things he hadn’t told Aziraphale, and the angel knew it. There were blanks in his information, swaths of metaphorical blacked-out texts and red letters that spelled “REDACTED” all across the story Crowley had told him. Here was what Aziraphale knew:

First of all, that he had been summoned to fight for Hell’s army just as Aziraphale had been summoned to Heaven’s.

Second of all, that Crowley had killed a fellow demon. Not just “discorporated”, _really_ killed him, and had evaded capture from another one by way of a very crafty trick with his ansaphone.

Third of all, that he had tried to find him and found the bookshop on fire.

And lastly, Aziraphale knew of the perilous drive intersecting his diabolical creation of the M25.

And after that, he was all caught up. But there were blanks. Things that Crowley withheld. Aziraphale wasn’t sure why, and he had no intention of pushing the matter. But he hoped Crowley would tell him in his own time. Until then, he would tread carefully.

“I didn’t tell you about the firehose, did I?” Crowley asked casually, stunning Aziraphale into terrified silence. There had been previous occasions like this one, where by pure coincidence the demon seemed to have read his mind, but somehow it was never any less jarring when it happened.

“No,” Aziraphale said, swallowing thickly.

Crowley turned back to him with a grin.

“Alright,” He confessed, “I know I hadn’t told you this, but when I saw your shop on fire, well – I didn’t exactly _leave_.”

“You went in?” Aziraphale asked, looking almost like someone who had just seen a ghost, or considering how all semblance of colour was now gone from his face, perhaps someone who just found out they _are_ one.

“Well, knowing you, you might have still been in there. Maybe you were so engaged with an original copy of The Iliad that you didn’t even notice.”

Aziraphale said nothing, but his lips pursed. Crowley smiled.

“Anyway, yes, I went in. Looking for you. And that’s when I got hit square in the chest by a jet of water from a firehose.”

“Did it hurt?” Aziraphale asked sympathetically.

“Of course it bloody well hurt!” Crowley scoffed, “Do you know how much pressure those things have?”

He paused, then:

“You _would,_ if you’d been thrown clear across a room by one.”

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale offered.

“No,” Said Crowley with a dismissive wave, “I’m glad you weren’t there to see that, anyway. So are you, trust me. I was a mess. Did you have fun on your little trip home, by the way?”

“I didn’t actually spend that much time there,” Aziraphale confessed, “I started looking for a way back as soon as I was alone.”

“See? I told you it’s not all that,” Crowley teased. Aziraphale swore he could see him wink behind the sunglasses, despite it being impossible to see through them.

A single, slightly dissonant tone interrupted them. Crowley glanced up to see the seatbelt sign finally, mercifully deactivated, and turned to his companion.

“That’s our cue,” He said, “Shall we?”

Aziraphale looked briefly upward, then nodded in agreement. They rose from their seats and shuffled out into the aisle, both glad for the chance to stretch their legs.

One of the two restrooms was already occupied. Crowley opened the cramped folding door of the other and gestured in.

“You first, angel,” He offered.

“You go,” Aziraphale declined politely, “I’ll wait for this one.”

Crowley shrugged and accepted. He didn’t plan on being long anyway. A quick lap of his tongue had been enough to clean most of the small stain away. Besides, he wouldn’t dare spend any more time in an aeroplane restroom than was strictly necessary. He was naturally fully incapable of contracting any human diseases, but in places like this he really didn’t want to put that to the test.

He pushed the sink handle with the back of his wrist, and rinsed his right hand with the quick five-second burst of water that it gave him. Then with his left, he grabbed a paper towel – careful not to touch the dispenser itself – and dabbed his palm dry. Before throwing the towel away, he covered his fingers with it in order to slide the lock back and open the door. He held it with his foot and leaned back to drop the paper towel in the bin next to the sink.

When he turned to exit, Aziraphale was still waiting. There was a split second in which their eyes met, and in that second Aziraphale suddenly realised that he had been subconsciously touching his fingertips to his lips. He jerked his hand away.

“All yours,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale bowed his head graciously as Crowley held the door for him. In the restroom, as he washed his hands thoroughly with soap and the warmest water the sink could provide, the seatbelt sign dinged awake again. Aziraphale figured as much. His ears had already begun to feel a bit stopped up. They were starting to descend.

He dutifully returned to his seat, and prepared for landing.

 

* * *

 

 

Crowley’s London flat was empty. It ought to be, considering that its owner wasn’t there. But the eyes watching from outside were expecting to see someone through the window, and their owner was sorely disappointed to not see so much as a flicker of movement within. Irritation burned in his unfamiliar veins. He would have to go up there. Again. Back to the disgustingly human, and potentially lethally contaminated, site of his embarrassing defeat.

Hastur mounted the stairs with his hands in his pockets. He looked like a walking shadow, if a shadow had the power to make the very air around it tremble in fear with every footfall. His mere presence carried with it sickness and worry. It trailed through the building like growing tendrils, infecting any residents unfortunate enough to be close to Hastur at the time with an empty and unshakeable dread. On every floor he passed, he could almost hear the human hearts drop into their stomachs. But even that was not enough to bring him joy.

Crowley’s door was closed. He tested the handle. It was locked. Normally, Hastur would have broken the door down without a second thought, but this time he restrained himself. The snake had got the jump on him last time, and it had cost him sorely. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of that humiliation. So he would have to try to think a few steps ahead. For now, he had the advantage. If Crowley knew that he had escaped, at the very least he didn’t know where he was, or what he was doing. Hastur intended to keep it that way. If he was going to break into the flat, he would have to do it without a trace.

Hastur was not skilled at enacting diabolical miracles on Earth. As a general rule, he spent as little time in the realm of humans as possible. He didn’t care, and therefore didn’t know, much about the world and the laws by which it operated. All he knew was that he had to think very hard about the door _not_ being locked, and so that was what he did.

The lock didn’t want to budge. If Hastur had known how the mechanism worked, it would have been more compliant. It wanted step-by-step orders as to what it should be doing with itself, not just the vague sentiment of “be different than the way you are now”.

Hastur tried the door again, to no avail. He scowled. His mounting anger began to generate sparks that flew, one by one, off from his vaguely human silhouette.

The deadbolt jumped back in fear. Hastur heard the click. Now _that_ was much better.

The next time he turned the knob and pushed, the door swung open. As soon as it did, Hastur was made immediately aware that Crowley was, indeed, not here. If he had been, Hastur would have been able to smell the treacherous little worm. That is to say, the scent would have been much stronger. It was still there, to be sure, lingering on all the surfaces he had touched like a disease. So when Hastur stepped over the threshold, he was careful not to lay a finger on anything.

He tramped silently through the flat, his face never lifting from its standard grimace. He was searching for any sign or whisper of where the dirty little weasel might have gone. He needed to track Crowley down.

This wasn’t about a job anymore. Hastur had been sent to bring Crowley in _before_ the Apocalypse. That had already failed. No, this wasn’t business. This was personal. Crowley had killed another demon. He had tried to kill Hastur. He had evaded capture. And that last crime was the most unforgiveable, because that was what would lead to a black mark on Hastur’s name. A failure to snag even a simple serpent. He simply could not allow that to happen. He wouldn’t be going back to Hell unless he was dragging Crowley with him.

It was truly fortunate that Crowley did not live in his flat. It was as perfect as a showroom, and twice as impersonal. And now, even his plants and his Bible were gone. Other than the few items of eternally fresh food in the fridge, there was no trace of Crowley- or anyone else for that matter – to be found inside. Nothing to tell Hastur where he might have gone, or even that he’d ever been there at all.

Hastur opened a door, and found another room on the other side of it. This one had a bed. It didn’t have much else.

But it did to Hastur. There was something different in this room. Something palpable. Something _odorous_. Something in this room smelled, ever so slightly, different from the rest of the flat. Whatever it was, Hastur would root it out like a bloodhound. He scoured the room.

It didn’t take long to find. The scent was emanating from the small wooden nightstand on the near side of the bed. It was faint, to be sure, but distinct. And it certainly wasn’t Crowley. It was something, or someone, entirely different. In fact, it was something _opposite_. And then it clicked. Hastur knew this scent. He hadn’t smelled it in many thousands of years, but he hadn’t forgotten.

An _angel_ had been here. There was no doubt about it. The scent of heaven had touched a demon’s flat, and it lingered here. Hastur was disgusted, but he couldn’t say he was surprised. Crowley had proven himself to be the slipperiest of traitors, the lowest of the low. It was hardly shocking that he would be involved with the enemy. This would be a juicy little detail for Hastur to bring back to the boss. But he would bring it in with the prisoner himself, not before.

And now, there was another piece of the puzzle that would lead to him. Hastur reckoned that angels probably came to Earth about as frequently as demons did – which was to say, hardly ever. Crowley’s flat didn’t contain even the slightest hint of his whereabouts. But that was fine. Hastur would just have to track this angel down instead, and get them to talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is a bit shorter and took so long to update. Since the last chapter, I moved twice and had to deal with all complications and responsibilities associated with that, plus a few bonus ones because that's just how the universe do. I ought to be mostly back on track now; writing may still take a while, but I don't plan to be on going on a whole hiatus again anytime soon.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I shamelessly plug a car that is, to be fair, actually very good. Also, Aziraphale commits a minor error in modern French vocabulary.

Crowley was disgruntled. Aziraphale had firmly decided to sit this one out, even before they arrived at the car rental. A few paces away, where he caught only a few snippets of conversation as they drifted over to him, Crowley was talking to the dealer. They were, no doubt, examining their options, none of which were Crowley’s Bentley and all of which were therefore inferior. Aziraphale was walking idly between the rows of cars, looking at them as though each were a wild beast about to buck or kick at any moment, and being careful not to touch any of them. Unlike Crowley, Aziraphale rather missed horses and carriages. But unlike Crowley, he could have plucked practically any horse from its stable and curiously managed to gain its trust in the same moment. Even wild creatures seemed strangely tame at his approach. He had a rapport with them. One he did not have with these heartless and thunderous machines.

He glanced over his shoulder to see how Crowley was doing. The dealer was trying to talk him into this car or that, and his face was set in grim disdain. Aziraphale wasn’t much for praying, especially in Crowley’s presence, but he was desperately _hoping_ that the human wouldn’t press their luck too far. Nothing good ever came of pushing Crowley over the fine line from being irked to downright irritated. He decided to keep an ear out, just in case the demon did anything rash that he might have to quickly reverse or, at the very least, cover for.

“ _Je sais bien que vous avez quelque chose de mieux de ça,_ ” Crowley was saying. His tongue tended to slip more often in French, and Aziraphale only hoped it wouldn’t slide out from between his teeth and betray him.

Crowley pointed in a different direction, and he and the dealer walked the way he had indicated.

Aziraphale returned to his wary observance of the vehicles, but kept listening out for any indication that negotiations might be going south. He trailed his fingers hesitantly through the air above a white car with a modest crest on the hood. The crest was fairly well-designed, if simplistic – composed of a cross on the left and a snake on the right; and he thought it rather nice.

“Like the Alfa?” Said Crowley suddenly in his ear. There was a pleasant coo to his voice, which Aziraphale would normally be wary of, but in this case he took it as good news. The demon reached out to proudly jingle the key of a rental next to him.

“I found us something better, though,” He confirmed.

He led Aziraphale to the car that he had picked out. It was sleek and low, black, with a red interior. It certainly suited Crowley, in Aziraphale’s opinion. Together, they loaded the angel’s luggage into the trunk – Crowley hadn’t brought any of his own; whatever he might need, he could buy or fabricate himself from the firmament – and Aziraphale almost went for the left-hand seat at first, then remembered where he was. It was nerve-wracking enough to be in a car at all, and Aziraphale wouldn’t be caught dead in the driver’s seat. He quickly moved around to the right, shaking the momentary but petrifying vision of being behind the wheel, and he and Crowley slid in to the leather seats. They were comfortable; he had to give him that as well.

“Citroën,” Crowley said, “SM. One of the only good things the French ever made.”

Aziraphale couldn’t have guessed for all the world what Crowley was trying to convey with the first two words, but he agreed with that last sentiment. Then Crowley began to speak more gibberish.

“V6,” He said, sliding the key into the ignition and turning. He grinned as the car roared obediently to life. “Maserati,” As he pointed to a silver pitchfork emblem on the dash.

Aziraphale was fervently wishing he would start saying things that made sense again sometime soon.

“It’s a good car,” He summarised to Aziraphale’s relief, “Not the best. But a good one.”

“Not the best” naturally meant “Not my Bentley”, and was probably aimed directly at Aziraphale for forcing him to leave it behind. He knew Crowley well enough to be able to translate that one.

“And it has marvellous suspension,” Crowley continued as he reversed the car out of its spot, “Would you like to see?”

He was driving now, they were headed out of the parking lot and onto the road. And judging by the wide grin on Crowley’s face, Aziraphale decided that he most certainly did not want to see the suspension. Unfortunately, he was not given any opportunity to voice that opinion.

“Watch this,” Crowley said. Straight ahead of them, on the way out of the rental lot, was a speed bump. Aziraphale saw it too.

Crowley accelerated.

Aziraphale shut his eyes and hung on for dear life.

And below him, he heard the wheels go “thum-thump!”

But he felt nothing. His eyes opened.

“Did you do that?” He asked in disbelief as Crowley momentarily slowed back to a slightly more acceptable (but still highly inappropriate) speed in order to turn onto the road. Crowley shook his head.

“That was the SM,” He said, “I told you. Suspension.”

Aziraphale agreed that whatever it was, it was quite impressive indeed. He also really wished that Crowley had chosen any other car that would not enable him to do that kind of thing. He settled in, as best he could, for what would no doubt be a very trying journey.

Ah, and that was another thing.

“Would you mind telling me exactly where we’re going?” He asked, holding his flat right hand up to the side of his face to hide how quickly the scenery was blurring outside his window.

“You want the name?” Crowley said, not decelerating even slightly to take the roundabout.

“Yes please.”

“Canet-Plage,” He informed, “Why, think you might know it?”

Aziraphale didn’t, and he shook his head. Then, realising that Crowley might not have seen him in his periphery (and hoping dearly that the demon was indeed watching the road, at least), he gave him a verbal “No”.

Crowley swerved around another car, narrowly avoiding it, and beside him he heard Aziraphale whisper something under his breath. Something that sounded like “mercy”. Since he usually avoided asking anything of Heaven, or even so much as mentioning it, Crowley wondered if the angel had been asking it of him. Oh, he rather liked that.

“How far is it from here?” Aziraphale asked aloud, a bit shakily.

“Not far,” Crowley dismissed.

Aziraphale swallowed. This wasn’t good. He reached up to grip the handle above the passenger window, and his fingers tightened desperately around it as Crowley swerved through the oblivious traffic around them. They were silent for a while, as Crowley drove and Aziraphale fought the sick feeling of fear in his stomach. When they reached the highway, he tried to distract himself by sifting through the glove compartment.

Along with all the car’s paperwork, there were a few cassettes in their slightly battered plastic cases. They were the kind that Crowley usually listened to. Aziraphale put a bookmark in that option, but opted to try something else first.

He turned on the car radio.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Crowley advised.

Aziraphale looked at him, puzzled, then turned the knob to sift through the channels. Each of them projected only dead air. Static, static, static, each time. It was sometimes soft, sometimes aggressive. He couldn’t pick up so much as a single channel. The white noise jumped frequently, as though it were skipping from one station to another of its own accord, but other than that sharp glitch of fractured sound it never produced anything else in the way of identifiable noise.

“I told you,” Said Crowley.

“Do you mean to say that you’re doing that?” Aziraphale asked, surprised. He gave up on trying to find an intelligible signal and took his hand off the knob. The static still flitted and jumped on its own.

“Not intentionally,” Crowley shrugged, “It just happens. Nothing I can do about it. You might as well turn that off now, angel.”

Aziraphale was about to. His hand reached for the radio again.

And then it stopped. Retracted slightly. Something had come through. It was a single syllable, nothing more than a clap of a cut-off vowel in the sea of crackles and hissing, but it had been something.

“It made a sound,” He said.

“Yes,” Said Crowley, patiently, “It’ll do that. You’ll hear more eventually. Turn it off now.”

Aziraphale didn’t.

“A - EL” Said the radio, in-between long bouts of fizzling.

“It never says anything good,” He warned.

Aziraphale waited.

“NG – L – TH - S” Said the radio in bursts.

Aziraphale listened.

Crowley’s right hand shot out and hit the power switch with the same blinding speed and accuracy as a sniper’s bullet. Silence cut the air. Aziraphale turned to look at Crowley.

“I told you,” Crowley grumbled abrasively, “It never says anything good.”

Aziraphale’s expression seemed almost offended.

“I thought it was saying-”

“No.” Said Crowley.

“It sounded almost like-”

“It wasn’t.”

Aziraphale was quiet for a long while, debating back and forth in his own head whether to press the matter or drop it. He decided on the latter, at least for the time being. Somewhat dissatisfied, he returned to rustling through the glove compartment.

Crowley watched him in his periphery for a while, as though to make sure he wouldn’t try anything. He didn’t, of course. Then Crowley’s focus returned to the road. The world rushed by. People, other cars, the landscape. Even though midday was hardly the most comfortable time for him to be out, it was hard not to relax a little.

He was far from London, and he was in a car, and he was on the move. Crowley didn’t feel safe as such, but he felt _safer_. Muscles he didn’t realised he had tensed released, only slightly.

But, as was generally the way of things, he wasn’t permitted to relax for long.

“What would it have said, if you’d let it?” Came Aziraphale’s voice from next to him. As casual as he could possibly make it. He wasn’t very good at deception.

Crowley sighed.

“See if there’s any Bach in there, would you?” He deflected. As soon as the words were out, Aziraphale found it. Or rather, it found him – suddenly it was there, in his hand. He took the cassette out of the case and put it in. This was much more pleasant than radio static, to be sure, but Aziraphale knew which one he would rather hear now.

“My dear?” He said.

“Why should I know?” Crowley demanded. Then, answering anyway, “It’ll never make anything intelligible. Just crude things. Words, sometimes. Not a message from below, if that settles that for you.”

“Do you always do that, to radios?”

“Yes, I do. But again, angel, it’s not intentional. Believe me, I’d turn it off if I could.”

There was a pause, punctuated only by music and the roar of the car’s engine.

“I thought it said ‘angel’,” Aziraphale said then.

“It could have said any number of things.”

_Is that why you turned it off?_ Aziraphale thought, but didn’t say aloud.

The journey was, mercifully, only a few nerve-wracking miles. But it felt like an eternity before Crowley finally began to slow down. Aziraphale was pressed into the back of his seat the whole way, and had been feeling ill for at least the past hour. And he looked it. Pale, and weary, and very out-of-sorts. Hardly his best.

Still… still.

_Look at him._

Crowley ignored that thought. He shoved it away like someone in his way walking too slowly, and kept driving.

He hadn’t called ahead to the hotel. Calling ahead was something that happened to other people.

They pulled up to the front, and Crowley rolled down the window for the valet. He told them that they had a suitcase in the back, and motioned for Aziraphale to get out. He was only too glad to do so. He even grabbed his luggage before Crowley could get out and help him with it. Aziraphale was pleased with that too. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate when Crowley did the gentlemanly thing. When he held doors open for him, or got his things for him. It was nice. He _did_ appreciate it. Truly. But.

“Want me to take that, angel?”

Behind them, the valet drove away with the car. Aziraphale shook his head, holding firmly to the handle of his luggage.

“Suit yourself,” Crowley shrugged.

But there was always a part of him that felt uncomfortable with it. A part that shrank back. Something that couldn’t be sure of what Crowley’s motivations were, and which doubted them. He trusted Crowley to the ends of the Earth, of course – and he probably shouldn’t say that, but what did it really matter, he was on holiday and he’d think whatever he’d bloody well like to – but there was something unsettling about being treated… the way that Crowley sometimes treated him.

But possibly, it could have just been because no one else had ever treated him that way.

He tried to shrug it off as they walked into the hotel together.

Aziraphale hung back as Crowley arranged the room for them. He was much better at speaking, so Aziraphale was glad to let him do it. He wasn’t necessarily friendly about it though, and sometimes Aziraphale wished he would be.

Now, for example. Crowley’s tone was amicable enough, his posture and body language were as cool and charismatic as always. But he always neglected to say “please” and “thank you”.

Crowley turned, his conversation over, and handed Aziraphale his room key with a smile.

“Let’s go up, hm?” He beckoned.

Aziraphale nodded. But first, he leaned over to the reception desk.

“ _Merci_ ,” He told the receptionist that Crowley had been talking to. Crowley rolled his eyes and began to walk away.

“ _Désolé pour mon copain_ ,” Said Aziraphale.

Crowley froze. His arm snapped backward of its own accord, and his hand found Aziraphale’s wrist without having to look.

“Angel,” He said, “Come with me. Now.”

Aziraphale did. Crowley practically dragged him all the way down the perfect, symmetrical layout of the hotel’s hall and pulled him just as forcefully into one of the lifts. Aziraphale tensed slightly as the thick metal doors closed on them, but Crowley’s mind was preoccupied by something much more daunting to be concerned with mild claustrophobia.

For a good few moments, as the lift shuddered to life and began its ascent, Crowley was silent. Frozen in place, staring blankly. Aziraphale watched him with mounting concern.

And then, he laughed. It was restrained, but in the relative silence, the sound seemed to rip straight through him. It tore a welcome, but unstable rift through the empty space between him and Aziraphale. The angel was relieved by it, but no less confused.

“ _Angel_ ,” Crowley heaved out in a breath, his voice almost swallowed by the repressed jitter of his laughter until it was barely a hiss.

“That does _not_ mean what you think it means anymore.”

“What are you talking about?” Said Aziraphale.

“ _Compagnon_ , angel. You wanted ‘compagnon’, not ‘copain’.” He was still chuckling, his speech interrupted by jolts of it now and then.

“They’re synonymous, are they not?” Aziraphale asked, perplexed.

“Not for the last couple hundred years, at least,” Crowley told him with clear amusement. Then:

“Do you want to know what it means now?”

He asked it insidiously. He wasn’t laughing anymore, but the remains of it stayed on his lips, which were curled into a narrow, crooked smile that bore his slightly too-sharp teeth. His tone was deeper now, and wrought to its core with mischief. Aziraphale wasn’t sure he _did_ want to know what it meant, come to think of it.

“Yes,” He said, ignoring the screaming voice of reason in his head, which promptly threw up its hands in exasperation and stormed off.

Crowley didn’t respond then. Not in words. He moved, smooth and sinuous. Suddenly his hands were on the rail on either side of Aziraphale’s body, and he was in front of him. Not too close, but still very evidently, very deliberately, pinning him in. Aziraphale swallowed. He knew he shouldn’t have agreed.

“Very well,” Crowley grinned, “But if _this_ embarrasses you then I’m sure you won’t find it as funny as I do.”

“Crowley for Heav- for goodness’ sake, what are you on about?”

“‘Copain’ means boyfriend, angel,” Crowley said with a despicable tone of self-satisfaction, “You apologised to that receptionist for your _boyfriend_.”

He was snickering softly again, but at least he had the decency to back off. The arms caging Aziraphale in retreated, and Crowley leaned back into the corner of the lift, regaining his ambivalent composure as easily as anything.

On the other hand, the colour of Aziraphale’s face most closely resembled a beet suffering from heat stroke. He felt suddenly ill again, and his teeth were so firmly locked on his lower lip that had he been even remotely conscious of it, he might have feared that they were beginning to draw blood.

But he wasn’t.

And they were.

The lift dinged cheerfully as it reached their floor, breaking Aziraphale from his terrified trance. He hurriedly grabbed the handle of his bag, grateful to be out of the confined space, if nothing else. He was half-worried that Crowley might step in front of him to block the door, but mercifully he didn’t, and waited to trail after Aziraphale instead. It was only after the angel reached the middle of the hallway and heard the lift doors close behind him that he realised he didn’t know what room they were in, and stopped dead. He was about to turn, embarrassed, to ask, but Crowley had anticipated it before he could even look over his shoulder.

“Room 625, angel,” He said.

Aziraphale sheepishly resumed walking, this time with purpose. The little directional plaques on every corner wall of the hotel’s identical hallways guided him towards the room.

Each step he took was intensely self-conscious. He wasn’t sure if he was glad that Crowley remained behind him as they walked, so that he wasn’t able to see Aziraphale’s face, or if he hated it, because it didn’t permit him to see Crowley’s face either. He burned in tense silence, stifled by the narrow soundproof walls.

When they reached the room, Aziraphale moved to unlock it. His hand trembled, only slightly, as he inserted the key into the lock, but if Crowley noticed it he said nothing.

And then the door opened, and Aziraphale reached around the inner wall and flicked the light on, and there it was. Some of his remaining uncertainty dissipated at the sight of the place where they would be staying. It looked and smelled that comfortable, sterile type of clean that only a nice hotel room can be. It felt like calm and rest, and it was fairly beautiful on top of that, albeit in an impersonal way. Crowley had, naturally, acquired only the best for them.

They walked in together. Aziraphale took a look around the place, the distraction offloading all but the last of his nerves.

Crowley wasn’t looking at the room. And perhaps some of Aziraphale’s creeping anxieties had not been so unfounded.

The place was spacious, with incredibly average cream-coloured walls and royal blue curtains and accents that were doubtless meant to remind them that they were in a beach town, in case they had forgotten that fact. The two queen beds were dressed in all white covers, so that their guests could be sufficiently reassured that they were all but completely sterile. Each had a reading lamp mounted above the headboard, and its own diminutive bedside table. A third small table between the beds hosted the phone.

On the opposite wall, a larger table with cabinets underneath held a television set, with plenty of space to spare for whatever the room’s occupants might see fit to set on it. In one corner sat a single large plush armchair, in the other a black mini-fridge.

Aziraphale set his suitcase down against a wall, and pulled open the long, thick curtains that shrouded off most of the far wall. Crowley narrowed his eyes at the sudden stream of light.

Behind them was a sliding glass door that led out onto a small balcony. Modest though it might be, it had a remarkable view of the beach, and of the sea beyond. Aziraphale may not like to admit it, but Crowley had picked a good spot. He allowed himself a sigh of resigned contentedness.

He turned around then, and resumed his inspection of the room.

Crowley was standing in the centre of it, still, arms crossed. Aziraphale could almost believe that he was admiring the view. Except that if he focused, he felt exactly where Crowley’s gaze was. He swallowed.

As if in response, or in realisation, the feeling of unblinking eyes on him dissipated.

Crowley moved, finally giving their accommodations the same once-over that Aziraphale had, though his gaze was a good bit more critical. Aziraphale went to the large table to investigate the cabinets.

Inside, he was pleasantly surprised to find a small plastic electric kettle, a stack of Styrofoam cups, and a box with a sampling of a few different varieties of tea. He decided to put the kettle on for himself, and for Crowley, if he decided he wanted to join. He filled it with water from the bathroom sink and plugged it in, in silence that was starting to become more and more uncomfortable.

Crowley had apparently finished his scrutiny of the room, and sat on the foot of the bed nearest to Aziraphale with a quiet exhale of satisfaction.

“Come on angel, you can admit I did well,” He gloated.

“You did well,” Aziraphale admitted, a reluctant grin forcing its way to his lips. Then:

“Would you like some tea?”

“Mh,” Crowley grunted, and Aziraphale didn’t have to turn around to know that it was with a shake of his head to indicate the negative. He heard him stir again and rise from the bed.

“I’m going to shower,” Crowley said, “I still smell like aeroplane.” There was, understandably, disdain in his voice.

“Need the bathroom?”

“No,” Said Aziraphale, getting a cup for himself.

“Later we can take a walk and decide on a place to eat,” Crowley suggested as he walked across the room.

“That sounds nice,” Aziraphale acquiesced.

Crowley disappeared into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. A moment later, Aziraphale heard the water running.

And it really did sound nice. It sounded good, and comfortable, and enjoyable, and Aziraphale felt a seed of uneasiness take root in the pit of his stomach, because it probably shouldn’t be _any_ of those things.

The water boiled, and he poured it into his cup, dropping a bag of black tea into it. He held it while it steeped, and wandered back to the sliding glass door. He pulled it back and walked onto the balcony.

And then, as he leaned on the balcony railing and looked out at the glittering afternoon sea, Aziraphale did something very rare, and extremely ill-advised.

He thought about the person – the person-shaped being – who had been his enemy for six thousand years.

This was ill-advised for many reasons, which was why Aziraphale was wise enough to not do it often. But he was not wise enough to do it _never_. And, to his credit, the incident in the lift was fresh on his mind, and one could hardly blame him for dwelling on it a bit. It was… uncomfortable.

But it wasn’t the closest that Crowley had ever come to him.

Not that Aziraphale kept track, but that title belonged to another unwelcome advance in 1763, when-

And then he stopped himself. No, no it didn’t.

He had, apparently, blocked it from his mind, and for good reason. But the closest Crowley had ever dared to come to him, physically, had been only a few days ago, during the would-be apocalypse.

Aziraphale had lit the sword of War aflame, and it felt in his hands not like an implement, but like an extension of himself. He was confident – not that he might actually be able to _defeat_ the Adversary, but that he might at least give him a few nasty scars to remember. But when he looked at Crowley, he could see that the demon did not feel the same way he did. Crowley had no hope at all. He was weary. He was strained. He was broken, thoroughly. There was no flame left in him at all.

But his hand still gripped the tire iron like it knew what it was doing. It held that only semblance of a weapon as though it still had some very nasty ideas of what it might do with it, and it would try its very hardest to test some of them out before he met a fate that would be immeasurably more horrible.

That had always been something Aziraphale had admired about him. Even when it seemed as though every part of him wanted, ached, to give up, there was always some small spark that wouldn’t let him.

And Aziraphale had been unable to restrain a fond smile, and he had told Crowley the only thing he could think to say, which was that there was goodness in him.

Crowley had brushed it off, of course, as moodily as he always did.

And then Aziraphale had offered his hand, and that got Crowley’s attention.

He took it, and he met Aziraphale’s gaze, and his mood didn’t improve, but it _softened_. And he had said Aziraphale’s name, told him that he was just enough of a bastard to be worth liking.

And when Crowley finished saying that, his face had been _much_ closer to Aziraphale’s than it was before.

Aziraphale was intensely grateful, looking back, for the sudden and barbarically tone-deaf appearance of Shadwell (which made it the first, and presumably the last time that Aziraphale would feel any measure of gratitude toward the Witchfinder). He had, thankfully, forcibly shoved them apart when Aziraphale might have made the lapse in judgement to not pull away himself.

He shuddered unpleasantly at the memory. Not because of what Crowley had done – he did a lot of things, in jest, that Aziraphale didn’t much enjoy. Like today in the lift. No, what bothered him wasn’t that Crowley may have, by some stretch of the imagination, been moving in on him in a way that wasn’t a cruel joke.

What bothered him, what really made his stomach churn, was that his own eyes had begun to close. And he had held very still, and clutched Crowley’s hand tighter, and _waited_.

Aziraphale’s hand reflexively clenched, suddenly reminding him that he was holding a Styrofoam cup full of cooling tea. With a concerted effort, he relaxed his grip to a more acceptable level. He sighed, and tried to shove the unfortunate memory into the back of his mind, burying it deep under an unruly stack of some of his other mistakes through the years. He tasted the tea. It was almost tepid. With another regretful sigh, he quickly drank it down before it could reach a temperature that would be utterly undrinkable.

“Enjoying the view?”

Aziraphale turned suddenly at the sound of the voice behind him. How Crowley had managed to slide the balcony door back and close it behind him without making any any noticeable sound escaped him.

He was dressed. Impeccably, as always. The suit he wore was different than the one he had gone in with, but it didn’t matter in the end. They were all facsimiles. Fabricated, but not from fabric. Aziraphale didn’t understand the appeal of it.

But he would willingly admit that, if nothing else, Crowley wore all black well.

The only sign that he had actually showered at all was that his hair was still wet. Untouched, unstyled, it hung strangely limp, a few strands of it dropping across and over the frame of his face.

“Shower’s open, if you want it,” Crowley said then, “I left you a towel. On the rack.”

Aziraphale nodded, in lieu of saying “thank you”.

“Something on your mind, angel?” Crowley asked.

A hard exhale hissed through Aziraphale’s nose as he averted his gaze. He knew it was useless to lie, but he tried it anyway.

“No, my dear. I was only thinking.”

Crowley didn’t ask what about, which was a good indicator that he knew Aziraphale wasn’t telling the whole truth. At least he respected it, and let it stay private. But it made the angel feel a tender pang of guilt.

“I’ll shower,” He said apologetically.

Crowley grunted in agreement. Then he said:

“We can take that walk when you’re done.”

Aziraphale nodded, and his posture relaxed slightly as a grin tugged at the corners of his mouth.

“Yes,” He said, “I’d like that.”

Aziraphale edged his way back inside. He made his way into the bathroom, noticed the towel that had indeed been left for him. He figured out the faucet, adjusted the temperature until it was just so. He undressed, averting his eyes from the mirror as he did so, and got in. Then meticulously, he cleaned himself off. He could have done that without taking a shower, but it felt better this way. Bathing was one of Earth’s simple pleasures.

And he finished what he has started; forcing any undesirable memories involving Crowley into the unfrequented recesses of his mind where they belonged, which was very much like shutting the door of a closet that has been stuffed full to bursting, and in which you definitely just heard something fall into a precarious position that will no doubt drop directly onto the next person to open that door. And knowing full well that that next person will be you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I'm sorry that this chapter took so long and I feel very guily about it. In all honesty, it's been "finished" for a while but I hated it and went back to edit COUNTLESS times.
> 
> Also, I did a Very Bad thing and started another multi-chapter fic knowing full well that dividing my attention and time was probably ill-advised. So bad news: slower updates. Good news (possibly): you're about to get a decent human AU out of the deal. Forgive me?
> 
> Oh, and just like Aziraphale, it's also been an extended period of time since I've spoken French regularly. Please forgive me any errors in that department too.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which sleep is not as restful as advertised.

In the outskirts of London, from the cracks in an old cobbled pavement in an even older alleyway, something was reconstituting.

A swarm of glistening, white maggots flooded out from the earth in a writhing heap, joined at the surface by the occasional hovering fly that each flew into the larval mass as though magnetically attracted to it. They built, up and up, and formed a figure, vaguely human in shape. It twitched, contracted, congealed. It solidified.

Hastur was whole again. He had almost forgotten how dearly it cost his corporeal form to separate for extended periods of time. Physical bodies, he remembered now, generally liked to stay together in one place, and were not very well inclined to have themselves scattered about. His body was not human, but it was still physical. So dividing himself was a feasible task, but it was one that took a great deal of effort, energy, and focus, and it became more and more unpleasant the further he spread himself or longer he stayed un-fused.

He would have to pace himself. It wouldn’t do to accidentally discorporate.

Fortunately, a couple legions of him had managed to grab a snack while they were out. Even when reconstituted, the pleasant aftertaste of human flesh still filled his mouth.

Hastur had been searching. All of him had been. Each individual maggot and fly, sent outwards in a random direction. Making its way through the air, through the dirt. Propelled by a singular desire. Looking for any trace of a scent.

He had thought that having two possible targets ought to double his chance of finding _something_ , but both Crowley and the angel were frustratingly elusive. Maddeningly, Hastur hadn’t gained any new information with this initial round of scouting. If only he knew where the traitor’s usual haunts might be, he would at least have a starting point. And an angel’s influence should, he had reckoned, be easy to recognise, but if there were any of it on the trails he’d searched then he hadn’t picked up on it. Perhaps this angel had been as bad at doing their job as Crowley had been at doing his.

Hastur tried to keep it together. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a strong point in his skill set, especially since he _was_ particularly talented at doing the exact opposite.

He blessed aloud, irritated with himself for once, instead of with someone else. If he had just listened to some of Crowley’s drivel even once, he might have had a clue as to where the snake usually loitered about. But the way things were, he hadn’t the foggiest idea. And as such, he had no choice but to continue to search exhaustively.

At the very least, London was just one city. How long could it really take to search it all? (It bears keeping in mind that Hastur’s concept of London, and of its population, had not changed much in the past century).

Luck – if indeed it exists as more than a fleeting human concept created in a vain attempt to find pattern and meaning in a world that has slim to none of either – had a history of being incredibly fickle with Crowley. When it favoured him, it favoured him mightily. When it frowned on him, it hit like a boxcar propelled into flight by the winds of a hurricane.

Crowley was, currently, incredibly lucky that:

            1) His chosen home city was large, and expansive, and dense.

            2) Hastur’s long-time dislike and disinterest for him confounded his ability to think of where the next breadcrumb on his trail might be

            3) The Venn diagram of his own favourite hangouts and Aziraphale’s was a mere two slim crescents away from being a perfect circle, making the angel equally difficult to track down, and

            4) He had, quite unpredictably for _anyone_ , skipped town entirely.

This bought Crowley a crucial tool: time. He would, beyond a shadow of a doubt, have plenty of it before Hastur would know where he was and would come for him.

Crowley was very unlucky, however, for one simple reason.

            1) He did not know, nor have any way of knowing, that he was being hunted.

And that was where it all fell apart. Because Crowley could have all the time in the world, and a mind that was keen for finding ways to dodge any consequences, and all manner of advantages both cultivated and coincidental. But none of it mattered, if he didn’t know to use them.

And he didn’t.

And he wouldn’t.

Not until it was much too late.

 

* * *

 

 

He was taking a walk.

Aziraphale was there too. Not that that mattered, not that it was terribly important, not that it was integral to Crowley’s enjoyment of this outing. He was there, making delighted little observations about how nice the smell of the sea was, and how quaint this or that little shop looked, and oh dear boy that restaurant seems nice, why don’t we go there for dinner?

Crowley nodded along. It wasn’t that he was disinterested; just that Aziraphale seemed to want to steer the conversation, and he was happy to take a backseat for it. There were times when few to no verbal responses were necessary, and this happened to be one of those times.

He wasn’t preoccupied. He _genuinely_ wasn’t, for once, which was rather strange for him. He was fully present, and more or less engaged, and – perhaps – _content_? It was a rare emotion, one from which he had been on the complete opposite end of the spectrum (or perhaps on another plane of existence entirely) for the past decade at least, and which even before then was about as rare and fleeting for him as a spotting a unicorn.

Nine times out of ten, the unicorn had also turned out to be a rhinoceros in the end. One that was charging directly towards him.

Suffice it to say, Crowley was not terribly familiar with contentment. He didn’t trust himself to be able to recognise it even if it were there, and didn’t trust it to stick around if indeed that was the case.

So he didn’t pay it much mind. He walked, and grunted a short “Hm.” of agreement where necessary, and quietly let his state of mind do whatever it bloody well wanted in the background, as long as it didn’t seem inclined to kick up any kind of fuss.

The sun was beginning to set, low enough in the sky that it would be blocked out from eye level by most buildings now. Its receding glow dyed the world a vivid orange and cast long, dark shadows. A warm breeze blew in from the coast, smelling like salt and sand and seaweed, and keeping the temperature pleasantly temperate even into the evening. It _was_ nice.

Crowley had lost his focus in it, and the back of his hand brushed against Aziraphale’s. A scowl manifested on his face just as quickly as he pulled his hand away. The angel paused, mid-sentence, for a fraction of a second, before he recovered and his words skipped back on track.

_He’s going to pretend it didn’t happen_ , an unwelcome thought interjected. And Crowley wasn’t thinking of the accidental touch. He was thinking of the Apocalypse, and Aziraphale’s hand firmly, _willingly_ clasped in his, and-

-And then he wasn’t. Perhaps he’d rather pretend it hadn’t happened too. Besides, it was rather spoiling his mood.

His attention was – quickly, and fortunately – snatched away again by the angel. He was distracted too, apparently, by the shop just up ahead of them. His eyes were wide, interest piqued, as he fixed his gaze on it.

“Is that-?” Aziraphale asked aloud.

It was. A cosy little bookshop, yellow light streaming gently from its windows and cutting through the shadow that otherwise concealed its front side. It looked old, and well-cared for, and, in that regard, very familiar.

“No,” Said Crowley. It wasn’t a denial, but an instruction. Aziraphale stopped mid-step, looking back at him quizzically.

“Sorry, angel. You’ll get caught up in who-knows-what in there, and probably end up overstaying your welcome. You know they’ll be wanting to close soon.”

Aziraphale frowned, conflicted. It was true, most of the other establishments they had passed had already closed for the evening.

“I can’t in good conscience let you go in.”

“You don’t _have_ a good conscience,” Aziraphale protested. It brought a mere flicker of a wry smile to Crowley’s face.

“Perhaps not, but I should hope you do. Besides, I’d rather like to get something to eat. My treat. What do you think?”

Aziraphale thought, to his dismay, that he couldn’t really argue with either of those points.

“We’ll come back tomorrow,” Crowley offered.

Not entirely satisfied, Aziraphale nonetheless surrendered, and turned back.

As he re-joined Crowley and they began to walk back the way they had come, a hand found the small of Aziraphale’s back to coax him in the right direction. Normally, Crowley would have limited his touch to the angel’s arm, but in this case he thought he might need something a bit more substantial in order to guide him away from temptation.

It wasn’t received poorly, but it wasn’t received _well_ , either. Aziraphale’s back arched away from the contact like oil on water. Crowley’s hand retracted, and once again at his side, found itself now balled into a loose fist.

He didn’t mind, though.

He didn’t.

They ate. It was a nice little place, one they’d found on their walk. When the conversation had turned to where they should go, they’d agreed on it almost immediately.

They talked as they walked there, and as they skimmed the menu, and as they ate. And somewhere along the way, they each separately came to the realisation that they were having a conversation. Not a conference, not a consultation, not an exchange. They weren’t talking about anything _important_ , in the immediate sense of the word. They were not planning, they weren’t negotiating. It was a pleasant change of pace, to have a conversation. To not feel the weight of the world and all life upon it on their shoulders. To simply talk, with no end goal. It had been a spell since they had done so last, and it took some re-adjustment for both of them.

“And if you would believe it, dear boy, the matter went all the way up to Sandalphon,” Aziraphale was saying, competently but not without a few trips and pauses, over his slim glass of white wine.

“Well, you know Sandalphon, of course it wants to know-” He stopped suddenly, and his brow furrowed. He leaned more into his arm, propped on the edge of the table, as though afraid the effort of thinking might make him forget to balance so he had best make sure he has a sturdy foundation first before getting too much into it.

“ _Do_ you know Sandalphon?” The angel asked suddenly, quietly, with a sheepish tenderness in his tone that asked worriedly if he had caused any offence.

“Of course I do, angel,” Crowley said, taking another sip from his own thin-stemmed glass.

“Well, we’re hardly on speaking terms now, but I _did_ know it. Uptight bastard, to say the least, I can’t imagine things went over well with it.”

He had been probing Aziraphale to continue with the story, but for some reason he didn’t budge. Crowley could almost see the brick wall between them that the angel’s mind had just run into.

And the other thing was, he could see what was written on that wall. He saw it before Aziraphale even opened his mouth.

“Do you think,” Came the inevitable question, cautiously, testing the water.

“Do you think,” And the grip of Crowley’s fingers involuntarily snapped tight around the stem of his glass, greatly compromising its fragile integrity.

“Do you think you ever knew _me_? I mean, did we ever meet? Before.”

The last word came out blunt and stunted, as if it had initially been intended as the beginning of a full statement, but had been cut off. Crowley could, at least, be grateful of that much. He had a mild preference for avoiding the F word (Fall).

“No,” He said, waving his hand dismissively as he aggressively ignored the anxious itch in the back of his skull, “Not possible. We’d remember.”

“How can you be certain?”

“You’re memorable.”

Crowley didn’t allow the silence that followed that sentence to last for long, and rushed to fill it with something a bit more comfortably self-centred.

“I should hope I am too.”

“Well,” Aziraphale posited, dithering habitually with his fingers, “I’m not sure. What were you like, back then?”

“Same as I’ve always been,” Crowley asserted, a bit too quickly.

“Would it be rude to ask,” Aziraphale began.

“Probably,” Crowley grumbled into his glass before taking another heavy sip.

“Would it be rude to ask,” Aziraphale continued regardless, “What your name was, then?”

“Yes.” Said Crowley, setting his drink back down on the surface of the table just as bluntly as he had dropped the word from his mouth.

“Ah. I’m sorry.”

In truth, Crowley didn’t mind that Aziraphale had asked. He had no intention of answering, of course, but he didn’t mind the question. Not when it came from him. But it served his purposes to act put off, so that the angel would drop the subject.

He knew they had never met in Heaven. They couldn’t have. Crowley had lain eyes on Aziraphale for the first time in Eden, and not once before. This didn’t surprise him. They had, naturally, run in very different circles, for one.

And in addition, there was the matter of hierarchy. Aziraphale was, and had always been, only a Principality.

When they walked back to the hotel, Crowley kept both his hands firmly planted in his pockets.

Their arrival back at the room found the pair of angels – one fallen, one intact – still chatting agreeably. It was a mindless conversation, one they’d probably had countless times before and which was as comfortable as an old armchair. That is, until Aziraphale asked a question that sent them on a detour into new territory.

“So,” He said, sitting delicately on the edge of the bed he had staked out as his own, “What now?”

“Now?” Crowley repeated, raising both eyebrows over the rim of his sunglasses, “Now we sleep. I haven’t had nearly enough, not in a long while, and I’d like to get back in the habit.”

“We don’t sleep,” Aziraphale said, adopting an odd expression that looked more like complaint than confusion.

“ _You_ don’t sleep,” Crowley corrected, “I rather enjoy it, thank you very much, and I think you would too if you gave it a try.”

“Nonsense,” The angel dismissed, a bit too quickly.

“Oh come now,” Crowley prodded, “Why not? Just this once.”

Across the room, in front of the open closet door, he was shrugging off his suit jacket. He wasn’t making eye contact, at least not that Aziraphale could tell. His sunglasses were still on.

“I don’t see the point in it,” Said Aziraphale, “Seems a waste of time, doesn’t it?”

“Not if you enjoy it.”

The collar of Crowley’s shirt was flipped up now; his fingers loosened the tie around his neck and busied themselves at undoing the knot.

“In any case, isn’t it worth trying everything once?”

Aziraphale shifted uncomfortably.

“Not everything,” He protested.

“Sleeping is hardly what I’d call a high-stakes activity. You’ve done worse.”

Aziraphale was beginning to contemplate a response, but in a split second of lucidity he suddenly realised that Crowley had been unbuttoning his shirt while they talked. He was more than halfway down now, and his hands worked with surprising rapidity at what remained.

The angel saw Crowley’s head start to tip in his direction and, suddenly conscious of himself, he averted his gaze. Heat rose to his cheeks.

“Well?” Came the expectant voice from the other end of the room.

Aziraphale suddenly noticed something out the window that required his immediate attention, and got up to fulfil that obvious necessity. His back now turned to Crowley, he finally felt half again as comfortable replying as he normally might be.

“You might be able to tempt me,” He confessed, hoping the forced smile that he injected into his tone would be enough to cover the slight tremor of nerves in it, “But not tonight, at the very least.”

“Fine. Suit yourself. For now.”

Aziraphale could feel cool night air radiating from the pane of glass in front of him, and the room had not been so much as a degree too warm for comfort to begin with. But behind him, he heard the soft shifting of Crowley’s shirt being removed, the muffled metallic clinking of his belt being undone, and the temperature could have been Arctic for all it mattered. Aziraphale was warm. On his face, and behind his ears, and down his chest, he burned.

Strangely, the spontaneous flare of heat only seemed to abate when he heard Crowley slide into bed behind him. The mysterious affliction released its hold, slowly, second by second. Homeostasis prevailed.

With a brusque sigh, Aziraphale turned to face the room again. If Crowley was going to sleep – out of the corner of his eye, he cast a hesitant glance at the occupied bed, and the figure in it did indeed appear to be settling in for the night – then he might as well get comfortable with a good book.

The angel may never have slept in his life, but he did own a few sets of sleepwear. He found them comfortable and pleasant, and they paired nicely with rainy days and hot tea and a pleasant read. Or any one of the three, really.

Unlike his companion, however, Aziraphale had some sense of modesty and decency, and as such he made a point of changing in the bathroom, and not brazenly in the open.

He sifted through his suitcase, of which about half the volume and almost the entirety of the weight consisted of books he couldn’t stand to leave behind. His fingers skimmed pensively over the one that was most loved – but not by him. The oldest by far that he had brought along, wrapped tenderly in cloth and further encased by a velvet-lined wooden box, then wrapped again in the angel’s neatly folded clothes to pad against any possible jostling, bumping, or unexpected beatings with a blunt object.

Some people with too much money and, as recent events had revealed, perfectly reasonable fears, build and stock fully functional underground bunkers for the personal use of themselves and their families in the event of nuclear war.

These people would probably be envious of the lengths Aziraphale had gone to to protect this particular volume.

He resisted the urge to break it out, and instead settled on an old favourite. He turned on the lamp provided to his bed, switched the overhead off for courtesy, and settled himself under the sheets.

In the bed next to him, in a periphery that he still didn’t dare to direct his focus to, the demon stirred.

 

* * *

 

 

Crowley liked sleep.

To be more accurate, he _used_ to like sleep. Over the past eleven years, however, he had begun to feel somewhat less positive about it. In fact, tonight would be the first time he would surrender to it in… oh, about five years or so, he supposed. Probably more.

He would have preferred his flat, but this would do. He had kept his room like a hotel anyway, so this was familiar ground. And the covers were clean and warm, if not as soft as the thousand-thread-count cotton affairs that he bought for himself because he thought that was probably what the kind of person he should be would do.

It took some adjustment to find and settle into the right pillow. It wasn’t down, of course, but the firmness of it was actually rather pleasant.

He turned away from the angel, who was now thoroughly engrossed in his book thanks to the light of his bedside lamp.

Crowley closed his eyes, and pretended that they were enough to shut out the dim light from behind him. He breathed deeply and consciously, allowed thoughts to filter through his head as he tried to let go of them all.

He still remembered how to sleep, of course. It hadn’t been _that_ long. But as much as he liked it, he had never been particularly good at it. And now, as it had always been, it took him longer than he would like.

But gradually, he sank. Deeper and deeper.

And once he was under, the reason he had stopped sleeping rose up to meet him.

He had assumed, he had hoped, that it would be gone now. But he was incorrect. It came back, and it came back _worse_. That same dream again.

The End. The real one. The big one. The Armageddon that, at least for now, had not come to pass as planned. An Earth that was purged and barren. Mercilessly razed, to form the perfect battleground. The exact nature of such a world was blurred. Even in Crowley’s subconscious, he could not bear to imagine the details of an Earth without all the things that had made it home.

But what mattered, what really mattered, was the insufferable clamour that choked him from all sides. A war, full-throttle, no-holds-barred, the likes of which he had seen countless times before and for which he thought he was prepared. If not to take part in, then at least to witness.

He was wrong.

The rage of it, the unbridled determination and rigour and _hatred_ from both sides surrounded him. It blocked out all else. His senses, his thoughts, his entire past. All the memories he had of human battle, the conviction he so strongly held that there was nothing in Heaven or Hell worse that what humans would do to each other, swallowed. Consumed, like everything else, by the horror and the painful immediacy of the War to End Everything.

And he fought, because he had to, because he had no choice. Not only was he explicitly not given one, but the weapons of Heaven are gifted with the terrifying ability to cut through any matter in the universe. Their sting was painful, to say the least. And Crowley didn’t much fancy the idea of allowing himself to be on the receiving end of one. So he fought, to defend himself. He fought, for lack of a better word, for his life.

And he feared the eventuality that he might falter. But what he truly feared, more than anything else, was-

-Was, in the cruel way of dreams, meeting his eyes as soon as he had thought it.

It was him. It couldn’t be anyone else. And they both knew it, and they dreaded it. Once they had seen each other, they did not look away again. It was not a challenge, and it wasn’t a plea. It was resignation.

Crowley did not dispose of the opponent in front of him. He was simply gone. He had disappeared as soon as Crowley had seen the other one, faded from the dream as easily as the entire final battle now blurred into insignificant background noise. Because it didn’t matter. His former attacker no longer mattered, the world no longer mattered, the entire war between Heaven and Hell, the war that would decide everything, no longer mattered. The only thing that mattered, the centre of the whole universe, was him.

Aziraphale.

Stern and stoic, appearing so much more unmoved than he felt, because he, too, had no choice. All he had was a job. A command that he could not disobey.

And he had a flaming sword. _The_ flaming sword. The one that once, briefly, marked the way to the Garden of Eden. The one that Crowley knew he could wield, and wield _well_.

His own grip, on his own weapon, was not so certain.

They flew to meet each other. There was, in both of their minds, no other option. Crowley had never thought about it, but he knew it the way a spider is born knowing how to weave. It had to be him. It had to be Aziraphale. He couldn’t allow anyone else to be his demise, and couldn’t allow anyone else to be the angel’s. _His_ angel, _his_ enemy, _his_ friend. _His_. For six thousand bloody years, bless it all, and no one else had the right to lay a hand on him.

And there was one other thing that Crowley knew, too, in the same way. In the pit of his soul, engrained so deeply in him that he felt it was engraved into his being.

He knew that he could not lift his sword.

He didn’t try to. Because he knew that if he tried, he would find himself perfectly, physically incapable of it. And if he didn’t try, he could still pretend that that weakness didn’t exist. He could pretend that he was making a decision, he could pretend that with this at least, he had a choice.

But really, there was no option. There was no choice. Crowley could not allow anyone else to be the one to strike Aziraphale down. But he couldn’t allow himself to either.

There was only one way it could end.

The flaming sword was lifted. Crowley saw it in his periphery, but his focus was not on the tool of his destruction. It was on the agent of it. And he could tell himself that he saw something in Aziraphale’s gaze. He could pretend that he saw pity, or regret, or some profound and inexpressible sadness. He could pretend that he saw it, and it might have even been true.

Crowley felt very little sadness, all things considered, and he was rather proud of himself for that. And he had no regrets, not about this, but if he raised his sword now he would still be able to fit in one more for the road.

That was what he told himself, with a pained inward smile, so that he could feign one last time that he might actually be capable of hurting the angel.

So his own gaze betrayed nothing, and there were no final words that burned on his lips with the desire to be spoken. And both of those were lies. But Crowley had been a good liar in life, so he might as well continue to be a liar in – in whatever unspeakable fate this would be.

And the fiery blade fell towards him.

And his eyes did not close.

They flew open.

He realised, in the same instant that he found himself conscious again, that he had sucked in an audible gasp the moment before. It had escaped him while still asleep, and reached his ears as he woke, and he clamped his teeth down hard as though doing so would somehow snatch the sound out of the air and reel it back it, to make it so that it had never happened.

Crowley’s second realisation was that it was still light in the room. He was lying on his back, could see Aziraphale’s enduring bedside lamp in his periphery, could see _Aziraphale_ in his periphery. He hadn’t taken into account, when he decided to sleep that night while the angel staunchly refused to, that he might dream again. He hadn’t considered that he might move, or make noise, or engage in any other subconscious activity while he slept that would make him a beacon for the angel’s delicate attention.

He considered it now, of course. Too late.

A subdued voice from his left said: “Are you awake, dear boy?”

_Far_ too late.

“Hng. Yes.” He confessed. He didn’t turn to meet the despicably soft gaze that he knew was boring into him.

“Is everything alright?”

“Everything is just _fine_ , angel,” Crowley growled. He was trying to weigh his two equally unpleasant options of going back to sleep and facing the possibility of suffering this same sequence of events again, or staying awake and subjecting himself to more questioning. The answer, he realised in the next split second, would be better decided if he had one more crucial piece of information.

“What time is it?” He asked. The fact that he had heard his question interrupt a deliberate inhalation from Aziraphale and, presumably, deflect whatever he had been on the cusp of saying, was a happy coincidence.

“Almost three,” The angel replied, his tone quieter and more even now, the verbal equivalent of taking a step backwards.

Crowley sighed, but only to himself. The breath was long, and slow, and perfectly paced out so as to be entirely inaudible.

“Alright,” He resigned, rousing himself from the bed and making it, with a lazy wave of his hand, as pressed and neat as though he had never slept in it at all.

“What else did you bring. In terms of reading material.”

Aziraphale blushed, his eyes suddenly downcast just as Crowley’s had finally consented to meet them. “Not much,” He admitted regretfully, “I didn’t really have much left after… ah, you know.”

“Right,” Crowley murmured apologetically.

“Do you like Wilde?” Aziraphale offered.

“No,” Crowley said. Then, “Oh, you mean his work. Yes.”

It was an old book of collected works; one of the few that had been spared. The pages were curled and wrinkled from intense heat, and the binding had a large black burn mark that engulfed at least a quarter of the back cover, but it was intact. Crowley was careful with it, as only he could be trusted to be. He opened it only a crack, only as much as was strictly necessary to gain an adequate view of the contents within, careful not to stretch the spine even a bit. And in the early hours of the morning, as the diurnal world slept and the nocturnal one hunted, the two that lay outside both their bounds sat in silence, hidden away in a room that was, if only temporarily, all their own, and they read.

It was a peaceful coexistence. It managed to remain so for nearly an hour, which was on average about as long as Aziraphale and Crowley could ever go without somehow, either deliberately or accidentally, interfering with each other.

“If you ever want to talk about it,” Said the angel, with finality, as he turned the page. His eyes never lifted from his book.

“Nothing to talk about,” Came the steadfast rebuttal.

“If you do.”

“I won’t.”

It was about as much as Aziraphale had expected. But he couldn’t press the matter. He didn’t want to seem too concerned. Too curious. Too invested in why he had heard what he had heard.

The soft, keening whines.

And the sharp inhalations.

And his name.

He couldn’t let on that it bothered him, that it ate at him, that for what seemed like forever now his eyes had been skimming the words of his book without taking any of it in. The angel may not ever have slept, but the world of dreams still possessed him now. The possibilities of it, of what it had shown his – his friend – tormented him.

His eyes skimmed past another line.

He tried to read it, and failed again.


End file.
